Related papers: Smooth deformations of singular contractions of cl…

A cusp singularity is a surface singularity whose minimal resolution is a cycle of smooth rational curves meeting transversely. Cusp singularities come in naturally dual pairs. Looijenga proved in 1981 that if a cusp singularity is…

A cusp singularity is an elliptic surface singularity whose minimal resolution is a cycle of smooth rational curves meeting transversely. Cusp singularities come in naturally dual pairs. In 1981, Looijenga proved that whenever a cusp…

One of the simplest examples of a smooth, non degenerate surface in P^4 is the quintic elliptic scroll. It can be constructed from an elliptic normal curve E by joining every point on E with the translation of this point by a non-zero…

Working in characteristic two, I classify nonsmooth Enriques surfaces with normal crossing singularities. Using Kato's theory of logarithmic structures, I show that such surfaces are smoothable and lift to characteristic zero, provided they…

We develop a general strategy, based on gauge theoretical methods, to prove existence of curves on class VII surfaces. We prove that, for $b_2=2$, every minimal class VII surface has a cycle of rational curves hence, by a result of…

We give an affirmative answer to a conjecture of Ma. Kato, namely that every compact complex surface $S$ in Kodaira's class $VII_0$ with $b_2(S) > 0$ and $b_2(S)$ rational curves, admits a global spherical shell.

Minimal surfaces are ubiquitous in nature. Here they are considered as geometric objects that bear a deformation content. By refining the resolution of the surface deformation gradient afforded by the polar decomposition theorem, we…

We show that a real rational (over $\C$) surfaces are quasi-simple, i.e., that such a surface is determined up to deformation in the class of real surfaces by the topological type of its real structure.

We prove that any class $VII$ surface with $b_2=1$ has curves. This implies the "Global Spherical Shell conjecture" in the case $b_2=1$: Any minimal class $VII$ surface with $b_2=1$ admits a global spherical shell, hence it is isomorphic to…

Consider the scheme parametrizing non-constant morphisms from a fixed projective curve to a projective surface. There is a rational map between this scheme and the Chow variety of $1$-cycles on the surface. We prove that, if the curve is…

Let $S$ be a compact complex surface in class VII$_0^+$ containing a cycle of rational curves $C=\sum D_j$. Let $D=C+A$ be the maximal connected divisor containing $C$. If there is another connected component of curves $C'$ then $C'$ is a…

We classify all complex surfaces with quotient singularities that do not contain any smooth rational curves, under the assumption that the canonical divisor of the surface is not pseudo-effective. As a corollary we show that if $X$ is a log…

We give a simple sufficient condition for a spun-normal surface in an ideal triangulation to be incompressible, namely that it is a vertex surface with non-empty boundary which has a quadrilateral in each tetrahedron. While this condition…

We extend Y.Eliashberg's $h$-principle to smooth maps of surfaces which are allowed to have cusp singularities, as well as folds. More precisely, we prove a necessary and sufficient condition for a given map of surfaces to be homotopic to…

We consider smoothings of a complex surface with singularities of class T and no nontrivial holomorphic vector field. Under an hypothesis of non degeneracy of the smoothing at each singular point, we prove that if the singular surface…

The classification of class VII surfaces is a very difficult classical problem in complex geometry. It is considered by experts to be the most important gap in the Enriques-Kodaira classification table for complex surfaces. The standard…

We prove that any compact surface with constant positive curvature and conical singularities can be decomposed into irreducible components of standard shape, glued along geodesic arcs connecting conical singularities. This is a spherical…

In this paper we prove that if S is a smooth, irreducible, projective, rational, complex surface and D an effective, connected, reduced divisor on S, then the pair (S,D) is contractible if the log-Kodaira dimension of the pair is $-\infty$.…

A viable and still unproved conjecture states that, if $X$ is a smooth algebraic surface and $C$ is a smooth algebraic curve in $X$, then $C$ realizes the smallest possible genus amongst all smoothly embedded $2$-manifolds in its homology…

We give a canonical synthetic construction of the mirror family to a pair (Y,D) of a smooth projective surface with an anti-canonical cycle of rational curves, as the spectrum of an explicit algebra defined in terms of counts of rational…