As the question title suggests, what is a Futaki invariant, what is the intuition behind it, and why is it important?



What is a Futaki invariant, what is the intuition behind it, and why is it important?
The best reference is the nice survey paper of Tian about Futaki invariant and CM polarization <http://bicmr.pku.edu.cn/~tian/?page_id=31> and another paper of Tian with Ding <http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/cheltsov/cambridge/pdf/tian92.pdf>


The Futaki invariant is a Lie algebra character on the space of
holomorphic vector fields. Its vanishing is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the existence of a Kahler-Einstein metric on Fano varieties. The Futaki invariant is related to the Chow weight in GIT.
In fact, on any Fano variety, we have an obstruction to finding a Kaehler-Einstein metric: if the Futaki invariant doesn't vanishes then there is no Kahler Einstein metric.


Donaldson generalized the Futaki invariant; his generalization is known as the Donaldson-Futaki invariant. It can be rewritten as a CM-line bundle due to Tian. 


It is worth mentioning that for arithmetic varieties, the Donaldson-Tian-Futaki invariant is a generalized version of the Faltings height. See <http://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.07716.pdf>


Let $(X,L)$ be a polarized projective variety. Given an ample line bundle $L\to X$, then a test configuration for the pair $(X,L)$ consists of: 


* a scheme $\mathfrak X$ with a $\mathbb C^\*$-action
* a flat $\mathbb C^\*$-equivariant map $\pi:\mathfrak X\to \mathbb C$ with fibres $X\_t$;
* an equivariant line bundle $\mathfrak L\to \mathfrak X$, ample on all fibres;
* for some $r>0$, an isomorphism of the pair $(\mathfrak X\_1, \mathfrak L\_1)$ with the original pair $(X,L^r)$.


Let $U\_k=H^0(\mathfrak X\_0,\mathfrak L\_0^k\mid\_{\mathfrak X\_1})$ be vector spaces with $\mathbb C^\*$-action, and let $A\_k \colon U\_k\to U\_k$ be the endomorphisms generating those actions. Then


$$\operatorname{dim} U\_k=a\_0k^n+a\_1k^{n-1}+\dots$$


$$\operatorname{Tr}\left(A\_k\right)=b\_0k^{n+1}+b\_1k^n+\dots$$


Then the Donaldson-Futaki invariant of a test configuration $(\mathfrak X,\mathfrak L)$ is 


$$Fut(\mathfrak X,\mathfrak L)=\frac{2(a\_1b\_0-a\_0b\_1)}{a\_0}.$$


See <http://www.math.purdue.edu/~li2285/notes/Futaki.pdf> 


<http://math.newark.rutgers.edu/~xiaowwan/Teaching/Math744/futaki.pdf>


for more information


Moreover, if you use the notion of slope stability of holomorphic vector bundles and use CM bundle of Tian then you see how the Futaki Donaldson invariant appear ;)


