Related papers: Normal bundles of rational curves on complete inte…

We prove the following form of the Clemens conjecture in low degree. Let $d\le9$, and let $F$ be a general quintic threefold in $\IP^4$. Then (1)~the Hilbert scheme of rational, smooth and irreducible curves of degree $d$ on $F$ is finite,…

Let X be any generalized flag variety with Picard group of rank one. Given a degree d, consider the Gromov-Witten variety of rational curves of degree d in X that meet three general points. We prove that, if this Gromov-Witten variety is…

We study various generalisations of rationally connected varieties, allowing the connecting curves to be of higher genus. The main focus will be on free curves $f:C\to X$ with large unobstructed deformation space as originally defined by…

We give a generalization of a result of R. Pandharipande to arbitrary characteristic: We prove that, if $X$ is a convex, separably rationally connected, smooth complete intersection in $\mathbb{P}^N$ over an algebraically closed field of…

Let X be a Fano manifold with Picard number one such that the tangent bundle T_X is big. If X admits a rational curve with trivial normal bundle, we show that X is isomorphic to the del Pezzo threefold of degree five.

In this short note, we show that any rational curve passing through the generic point in a moduli space of stable bundles with rank $r$ and fixed determinant on a smooth projective curve of genus $g\ge 4$ has degree (with respect to the…

Complete intersections inside rational homogeneous varieties provide interesting examples of Fano manifolds. For example, if $X = \cap_{i=1}^r D_i \subset G/P$ is a general complete intersection of $r$ ample divisors such that $K_{G/P}^*…

Let X be a projective variety which is covered by rational curves, for instance a Fano manifold over the complex numbers. In this setup, characterization and classification problems lead to the natural question: "Given two points on X, how…

A classical fact is that normal bundles of rational normal curves are well-balanced. We generalize this by proving that all Veronese normal bundles are slope semistable. We also determine the line bundle decomposition of the restriction of…

We prove that a complete family of linearly non-degenerate rational curves of degree $e > 2$ in $\mathbb{P}^n$ has at most $n-1$ moduli. For $e = 2$ we prove that such a family has at most $n$ moduli. It is unknown whether or not this is…

Let X be a smooth hypersurface of degree d in P^n over an algebraically closed field of characteristic p. We show that X must be separably rationally connected and must contain a free line if either p is at least d or if p is at least d-1…

We prove that a general complete intersection of dimension $n$, codimension $c$ and type $d_1, \dots, d_c$ in $\mathbb{P}^N$ has ample cotangent bundle if $c \geq 2n-2$ and the $d_i$'s are all greater than a bound that is $O(1)$ in $N$ and…

Let $E$ be a rank 2, degree $d$ vector bundle over a genus $g$ curve $C$. The loci of stable pairs on $E$ in class $2[C]$ fixed by the scaling action are expressed as products of $\Quot$ schemes. Using virtual localization, the stable pairs…

We study various measures of irrationality for hypersurfaces of large degree in projective space and other varieties. These include the least degree of a rational covering of projective space, and the minimal gonality of a covering family…

We prove that a fibration X \to \Bbb P_1, the general fiber of which is a smooth Fano threefold, is rationally connected. The proof is based on a generalization of Tsen's classical theorem: a fibration X/C over a curve the general fiber of…

We generalize the work of Dem'janenko and Silverman for the Fermat quartics, effectively determining the rational points on the curves $x^{2m}+ax^m+ay^m+y^{2m}=b$ whenever the ranks of some companion hyperelliptic Jacobians are at most one.…

Let C be a smooth cubic curve in the complex projective plane. We show that for every positive integer k, there are only finite number of rational curves of degree k each intersects the cubic C at exactly one point. The number of such…

The goal of this article is to study the equations and syzygies of embeddings of rational surfaces and certain Fano varieties. Given a rational surface X and an ample and base-point-free line bundle L on X, we give an optimal numerical…

We introduce arrangements of rational sections over curves. They generalize line arrangements on P^2. Each arrangement of d sections defines a single curve in P^{d-2} through the Kapranov's construction of \bar{M}_{0,d+1}. We show a…

We show the Kontsevich space of rational curves of degree at most roughly $\frac{2-\sqrt{2}}{2}n$ on a general hypersurface $X\subset \mathbb{P}^n$ of degree $n-1$ is equidimensional of expected dimension and has two components: one…