Schematic Harder-Narasimhan Stratification

Abstract

For any flat family of pure-dimensional coherent sheaves on a family of projective schemes, the Harder-Narasimhan type (in the sense of Gieseker semistability) of its restriction to each fiber is known to vary semicontinuously on the parameter scheme of the family. This defines a stratification of the parameter scheme by locally closed subsets, known as the Harder-Narasimhan stratification. In this note, we show how to endow each Harder-Narasimhan stratum with the structure of a locally closed subscheme of the parameter scheme, which enjoys the universal property that under any base change the pullback family admits a relative Harder-Narasimhan filtration with a given Harder-Narasimhan type if and only if the base change factors through the schematic stratum corresponding to that Harder-Narasimhan type. The above schematic stratification induces a stacky stratification on the algebraic stack of pure-dimensional coherent sheaves. We deduce that coherent sheaves of a fixed Harder-Narasimhan type form an algebraic stack in the sense of Artin.