The birational geometry of GIT quotients

Abstract Geometric invariant theory (GIT) produces quotients of algebraic varieties by reductive groups. If the variety is projective, this quotient depends on a choice of polarisation; by work of Dolgachev–Hu and Thaddeus, it is known that two quotients of the same variety using different polarisations are related by birational transformations. Only finitely many birational varieties arise in this way: variation of GIT fails to capture the entirety of the birational geometry of GIT quotients. We construct a space parametrising all possible GIT quotients of all birational models of the variety in a simple and natural way, which captures the entirety of the birational geometry of GIT quotients in a precise sense. It yields in particular a compactification of a birational analogue of the set of stable orbits of the variety.