TITLE: vanishing theorem in algebraic geometry
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: This is a general question: As we know there are a lot of vanishing theorems like Fujita vanishing, kodaira Nakano vanishing, vanishing for big nef line bundle, Kollár vanishing, etc. Those just for projective guys.
My question is: are there some important vanishing problems for general complete algebraic manifold? Although we don't have nice line bundle like $\mathcal{O}_X(1)$, are there still some vanishing expectation for cohomology of coherent sheaves in some sense.
More specific question, if we have a proper surjective morphism $f:X\rightarrow Y$, $X$ complete, $Y$ projective, do we expect that $R^jf_*\mathcal{O}_X(K_X)=0$ for $j>dim X-dim Y$?

REPLY [5 votes]: I guess I could have just told you in person, but  anyway, yes your specific question has a positive answer. To see this, use Chow's theorem and resolution of singularities to find a birational map $\pi:\tilde X\to X$ with $\tilde X$ smooth and projective. Now apply Kollár vanishing twice (or really Grauert-Riemenschneider) to get $R^if_*K_X= R^i(f\circ \pi)_* K_{\tilde X} = 0$ for $i>\dim X-\dim Y$.