Unbounded negativity on rational surfaces in positive characteristic

We give explicit blowups of the projective plane in positive characteristic that contain smooth rational curves of arbitrarily negative self-intersection, showing that the Bounded Negativity Conjecture fails even for rational surfaces in positive characteristic. As a consequence, we show that any surface in positive characteristic admits a birational model failing the Bounded Negativity Conjecture.

Elliptic Fibrations and Kodaira Dimensions of Schreieder’s Varieties

We discuss the birational geometry and the Kodaira dimension of certain varieties previously constructed by Schreieder, proving that in any dimension they admit an elliptic fibration and they are not of general type. The $l$-dimensional variety $Y_{(n)}^{(l)}$, which is the quotient of the product of a certain curve $C_{(n)}$ by itself $l$ times by a group $G\simeq \left ({\mathbb{Z}}/n{\mathbb{Z}}\right )^{l-1}$ of automorphisms, was constructed by Schreieder to obtain varieties with prescribed Hodge numbers. If $n=3^c$ Schreieder constructed an explicit smooth birational model of it, and Flapan proved that the Kodaira dimension of this smooth model is 1, if $c>1$; if $l=2$ it is a modular elliptic surface; if $l=3$ it admits a fibration in K3 surfaces. In this paper we generalize these results: without any assumption on $n$ and $l$ we prove that $Y_{(n)}^{(l)}$ admits many elliptic fibrations and its Kodaira dimension is at most 1. Moreover, if $l=2$, its minimal resolution is a modular elliptic surface, obtained by a base change of order $n$ on a specific extremal rational elliptic surface; if $l\geq 3$ it has a birational model that admits a fibration in K3 surfaces and a fibration in $(l-1)$-dimensional varieties of Kodaira dimension at most 0.

THE HYPERELLIPTIC THETA MAP AND OSCULATING PROJECTIONS

Let C be a hyperelliptic curve of genus $g \geq 3$ . In this paper, we give a new geometric description of the theta map for moduli spaces of rank 2 semistable vector bundles on C with trivial determinant. In order to do this, we describe a fibration of (a birational model of) the moduli space, whose fibers are GIT quotients $(\mathbb {P}^1)^{2g}//\text {PGL(2)}$ . Then, we identify the restriction of the theta map to these GIT quotients with some explicit degree 2 osculating projection. As a corollary of this construction, we obtain a birational inclusion of a fibration in Kummer $(g-1)$ -varieties over $\mathbb {P}^g$ inside the ramification locus of the theta map.

Threefolds fibred by mirror sextic double planes

We present a systematic study of threefolds fibred by K3 surfaces that are mirror to sextic double planes. There are many parallels between this theory and the theory of elliptic surfaces. We show that the geometry of such threefolds is controlled by a pair of invariants, called the generalized functional and generalized homological invariants, and we derive an explicit birational model for them, which we call the Weierstrass form. We then describe how to resolve the singularities of the Weierstrass form to obtain the “minimal form”, which has mild singularities and is unique up to birational maps in codimension 2. Finally, we describe some of the geometric properties of threefolds in minimal form, including their singular fibres, canonical divisor, and Betti numbers.

Finite Generation of the Algebra of Type A Conformal Blocks via Birational Geometry

We study the birational geometry of the moduli space of parabolic bundles over a projective line, in the framework of Mori’s program. We show that the moduli space is a Mori dream space. As a consequence, we obtain the finite generation of the algebra of type A conformal blocks. Furthermore, we compute the H-representation of the effective cone that was previously obtained by Belkale. For each big divisor, the associated birational model is described in terms of moduli space of parabolic bundles.

Reduction maps and minimal model theory

We use reduction maps to study the minimal model program. Our main result is that the existence of a good minimal model for a Kawamata log terminal pair (X,Δ) can be detected on a birational model of the base of the (KX+Δ)-trivial reduction map. We then interpret the main conjectures of the minimal model program as a natural statement about the existence of curves on X.

Two algebraic deformations of a K3 surface

Let X be a nonsingular algebraic K3 surface carrying a nonsingular hyperelliptic curve of genus 3 and no rational curves. Our purpose is to study two algebraic deformations of X, viz. one specialization and one generalization. We assume the characteristic ≠ 2. The generalization of X is a nonsingular quartic surface Q in P3 : we wish to show in § 1 that there is an irreducible algebraic family of surfaces over the affine line, in which X is a member and in which Q is a general member. The specialization of X is a surface Y having a birational model which is a ramified double cover of a quadric cone in P3.