Projective embeddings of homogeneous spaces with small boundary

Abstract

We study open equivariant projective embeddings of homogeneous spaces such that the complement of the open orbit has codimension at least 2. We establish a criterion for the existence of such an embedding, prove that the set of isomorphism classes of such embeddings is finite, and give a construction of the embeddings in terms of Geometric Invariant Theory. A generalization of Cox's construction and the theory of bunched rings enable us to describe in combinatorial terms the basic geometric properties of embeddings with small boundary.