On the deformation to the normal cone in Arakelov geometry

We present an Arakelov theoretic version of the deformation to the normal cone. In particular, the geometric data is enriched with a deformation of a Hermitian line bundle. We introduce numerical invariants called arithmetic Hilbert invariants and prove the conservation of these invariants along the deformation. In a following article, this conservation of number theorem will allow a demonstration of the arithmetic Hilbert-Samuel theorem.