Related papers: A very general quartic double fourfold or fivefold…
This paper treats the dominant rational maps from the product of two very general curves to nonsingular projective surfaces. Combining the result by Bastianelli and Pirola, we prove that the product of two very general curves of genus…
We prove that, on a sufficiently general diagonal quartic surface, there is a non-trivial Brauer group but no Brauer-Manin obstruction to the existence of rational points.
Let $X^{(n)}$ denote $n$-th symmetric power of a cubic surface $X$. We show that $X^{(4)}\times X$ is stably birational to $X^{(3)}\times X$, despite examples when $X^{(4)}$ is not stably birational to $X^{(3)}$.
It is known that the smooth rational threefolds of P^5 having a rational non-special surface of P^4 as general hyperplane section have degree d=3,... ,7. We study such threefolds X from the point of view of linear systems of surfaces in…
We study rational surfaces on very general Fano hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}^n$, with an eye toward unirationality. We prove that given any fixed family of rational surfaces, a very general hypersurface of degree $d$ sufficiently close to…
We prove that there exist rational but not uniformly rational smooth algebraic varieties. The proof is based on computing a certain numerical obstruction developed in the case of compactifications of affine spaces. We show that for some…
Let X be a smooth quartic surface not containing lines, defined over a number field K. We prove that there are only finitely many bitangents to X which are defined over K. This result can be interpreted as saying that a certain surface,…
We show that for a Zariski general hypersurface $V$ of degree $M+1$ in ${\mathbb P}^{M+1}$ for $M\geqslant 5$ there are no Galois rational covers $X\dashrightarrow V$ of degree $d\geqslant 2$ with an abelian Galois group, where $X$ is a…
We show that among the Euclidean submanifolds with codimension two the ones of rank two that are parabolic but nonruled are isometrically rigid. This generalizes the result in [10] that these submanifolds are genuinely rigid. In addition,…
A cubic hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^n$ defined over $\mathbb{Q}$ is given by the vanishing locus of a cubic form $f$ in $n+1$ variables. It is conjectured that when $n \geq 4$, such cubic hypersurfaces satisfy the Hasse principle. This is…
The purpose of this note is to give a short, selfcontained proof of the following result: A complex surface which is diffeomeorphic to a rational surface is rational.
We prove that a general $n$-fold quadric bundle $\mathcal{Q}^{n-1}\rightarrow\mathbb{P}^{1}$, over a number field, with $(-K_{\mathcal{Q}^{n-1}})^n > 0$ and discriminant of odd degree $\delta_{\mathcal{Q}^{n-1}}$ is unirational, and that…
Cubic fourfolds of discriminant 24 contain special codimension-two algebraic cycles of degree 6 and self-intersection 20. Such cycles may be represented by singular scrolls or del Pezzo surfaces. A discriminant 24 cubic fourfold gives rise…
Let $S$ be a smooth projective surface over a field. We introduce the notion of integral decomposability and, respectively, the opposite notion of integral indecomposability, of the transcendental motive $M^2_{\rm tr}(S)$. If the…
We use the method of stable degenerations to study the local geometry of Calabi-Yau fourfolds for F-theory compactifications dual to heterotic compactifications on a Calabi-Yau threefold with fivebranes wrapping holomorphic curves in the…
This is a survey of the geometry of complex cubic fourfolds with a view toward rationality questions. Topics include classical constructions of rational examples, Hodge structures and special cubic fourfolds, associated K3 surfaces and…
We compute the number of rational quartics on a general Calabi-Yau hypersurface in weighted projective space P(2,1^4). The result agrees with the prediction made by mirror symmetry.
The canonical double cover $B(X)$ of a graph $X$ is the direct product of $X$ and $K_2$. If $Aut(B(X)) \cong Aut(X) \times \mathbb{Z}_2$ then $X$ is called stable; otherwise $X$ is called unstable. An unstable graph is nontrivially unstable…
In this paper we study smooth complex projective polarized varieties (X,H) of dimension n \ge 2 which admit a dominating family V of rational curves of H-degree 3, such that two general points of X may be joined by a curve parametrized by…
The aim of this paper is to prove two results concerning the rigidity of complete, immersed, orientable, stable minimal hypersurfaces: we show that they are hyperplane in $\mathbb{R}^4$, while they do not exist in positively curved closed…