Multiple realizations of varieties as ball quotient compactifications

Abstract

We study the number of distinct ways in which a smooth projective surface $X$ can be realized as a smooth toroidal compactification of a ball quotient. It follows from work of Hirzebruch that there are infinitely many distinct ball quotients with birational smooth toroidal compactifications. We take this to its natural extreme by constructing arbitrarily large families of distinct ball quotients with biholomorphic smooth toroidal compactifications.

Minor changes and references updated. To appear in Michigan Math. J