Asymptotically log Fano varieties

Motivated by the study of Fano type varieties we define a new class of log pairs that we call asymptotically log Fano varieties and strongly asymptotically log Fano varieties. We study their properties in dimension two under an additional assumption of log smoothness, and give a complete classification of two dimensional strongly asymptotically log smooth log Fano varieties. Based on this classification we formulate an asymptotic logarithmic version of Calabi's conjecture for del Pezzo surfaces for the existence of Kahler Einstein edge metrics in this regime. We make some initial progress towards its proof by demonstrating some existence and non-existence results, among them a generalization of Matsushima's result on the reductivity of the automorphism group of the pair, and results on log canonical thresholds of pairs. One by-product of this study is a new conjectural picture for the small angle regime and limit which reveals a rich structure in the asymptotic regime, of which a folklore conjecture concerning the case of a Fano manifold with an anticanonical divisor is a special case. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.