Quasi-Hodge Metrics and Canonical Singularities

We study one parameter degenerations of complex projective manifolds by introducing certain type of Hodge metrics coming from the pluricanonical forms. We show that degenerations with at most canonical singularities are all in the finite distance boundary of moduli spaces. We also propose the converse to be true in the sense that finite distance degenerations admit birational models which have at most canonical singularities in the degenerate fiber. We verify this for curves and show that the Calabi-Yau case follows from the minimal model conjecture.