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So, I've been running in both stacky circles and logarithmic circles and I've been wondering: is there a definition of log stack that is "useful"? I can imagine two such definitions:

1) A log stack is a stack along with an effective divisor (could be useful for studying moduli of smooth curves, then)

2) A log stack is a stack over the category of log schemes

Is either one in standard use? Are they equivalent?

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2 Answers 2

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This question was answered in Martin Olsson's thesis ( http://math.berkeley.edu/~molsson/thesis.ps ). He gives sufficient conditions for a fibered category on the category of log schemes to arise from "a stack with a log structure", which I think is more or less what Charles intended by Option 1.

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Thanks a lot for the reference. That's what I really meant to say, I've been working with a very small, special class of log varieties, so I've been thinking "effective divisor" because it's good enough for what I had been doing. –  Charles Siegel Oct 24 '09 at 19:44

Option 1 is definitely not the definition - in the scheme setting, it doesn't yield log structures on the divisors in question, and you don't get log points. A.J. mentioned that you probably meant to say, "stack equipped with a log structure". You can find a definition in section 5 of Martin Olsson's paper Logarithmic geometry and algebraic stacks. His web page doesn't have it, but you can find it on Google Scholar.

Option 2 works also. Fine log schemes over a base fine log scheme form an algebraic stack over the underlying base scheme. You can do your log stack theory over this. See Corollary 5.8 in Olsson's paper comparing the two options.

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Thanks a lot for the references. I wish I could pick multiple correct answers, because both your link and AJ's are very helpful. –  Charles Siegel Oct 24 '09 at 19:46

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