Stability conditions for polarised varieties

We introduce an analogue of Bridgeland’s stability conditions for polarised varieties. Much as Bridgeland stability is modelled on slope stability of coherent sheaves, our notion of Z-stability is modelled on the notion of K-stability of polarised varieties. We then introduce an analytic counterpart to stability, through the notion of a Z-critical Kähler metric, modelled on the constant scalar curvature Kähler condition. Our main result shows that a polarised variety which is analytically K-semistable and asymptotically Z-stable admits Z-critical Kähler metrics in the large volume regime. We also prove a local converse and explain how these results can be viewed in terms of local wall crossing. A special case of our framework gives a manifold analogue of the deformed Hermitian Yang–Mills equation.