Related papers: Stable rationality of quadric and cubic surface bu…

The main aim of this paper is to show that a cyclic cover of $\mathbb{P}^n$ branched along a very general divisor of degree $d$ is not stably rational provided that $n \ge 3$ and $d \ge n+1$. This generalizes the result of…

We study rational curves on general Fano hypersurfaces in projective space, mostly by degenerating the hypersurface along with its ambient projective space to reducible varieties. We prove results on existence of low-degree rational curves…

This paper contains results on stable bundles of rank 2 with space of sections of dimension 4 on a smooth irreducible projective algebraic curve $C$. There is a known lower bound on the degree for the existence of such bundles; the main…

We prove that a very general nonsingular conic bundle $X\rightarrow\mathbb{P}^{n-1}$ embedded in a projective vector bundle of rank $3$ over $\mathbb{P}^{n-1}$ is not stably rational if the anti-canonical divisor of $X$ is not ample and…

Let $C$ be the rational normal curve of degree $e$ in $\mathbb{P}^n$, and let $X\subset \mathbb{P}^n$ be a degree $d\ge 2$ hypersurface containing $C$. In previous work, I. Coskun and E. Riedl showed that the normal bundle $N_{C/X}$ is…

Some classes of cubic fourfolds are birational to fibrations over $P^2$, where the fibers are rational surfaces. This is the case for cubics containing a plane (resp. an elliptic ruled surface), where the fibers are quadric surfaces (resp.…

A well known conjecture asserts that a cubic fourfold X is rational if it has a cohomologically associated K3 surface. G.Ouchi proved that if X admits a finite group G of symplectic automorphisms, whose order is different from 2, then X has…

Let $X\subset \P^5$ be a smooth cubic fourfold. A well known conjecture asserts that $X$ is rational if and only if there an Hodge theoretically associated K3 surface $S$. The surface $S$ can be associated to $X$ in two other different…

In this paper, we compare the moduli spaces of rank-3 vector bundles stable with respect to different ample divisors over rational ruled surfaces. We also discuss the irreducibility, unirationality, and rationality of these moduli spaces.

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…

We study points and 0-cycles on del Pezzo surfaces defined over a field K of characteristic 0, with emphasis on cubic surfaces. We prove that a cubic surface that admits a point defined over a field extension of K of degree coprime to 3…

We study real double covers of $\mathbb P^1\times\mathbb P^2$ branched over a $(2,2)$-divisor, which have the structure of a conic bundle threefold with smooth quartic discriminant curve via the second projection. In each isotopy class of…

We undertake a study of conic bundle threefolds $\pi\colon X\to W$ over geometrically rational surfaces whose associated discriminant covers $\tilde{\Delta}\to\Delta\subset W$ are smooth and geometrically irreducible. First, we determine…

In this paper, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of Ulrich bundles on cubic fourfold $X$ of given rank $r$. As consequences, we show that for every integer $r\ge 2$ there exists a family of indecomposable rank…

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…

We study the moduli space of stable sheaves of Euler characteristic 1 supported on curves of bidegree (3, 3) contained in a smooth quadric surface. We show that this moduli space is rational. We compute its Betti numbers by studying the…

We consider diagonal cubic surfaces defined by an equation of the form ax^3+by^3+cz^3+dt^3 = 0. Numerically, one can find all rational points of height < B for B in the range of up to 100 000, thanks to a program due to D. J. Bernstein. On…

We exhibit families of smooth projective threefolds with both stably rational and non stably rational fibers.

We study the moduli spaces of rational curves on cubic hypersurfaces in characteristic $\neq2,3$. As a result, we prove that for every integer $d\geq1$ the Kontsevich moduli space of stable maps on a smooth cubic hypersurface $X$ of degree…

The notion of constant cycle curves on K3 surfaces is introduced. These are curves that do not contribute to the Chow group of the ambient K3 surface. Rational curves are the most prominent examples. We show that constant cycle curves…