Related papers: Rational curves on $V_5$ and rational simple conne…

Motivated by several recent results on the geometry of the moduli spaces $\bar{\Cal M}_{g,n}$ of stable curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points, here we determine their birational structure for small values of $g$ and $n$ by exploiting…

We prove that very general non-rational Fano threefolds which are not birational to cubic threefolds are not stably rational.

Let F be a polarized irreducible holomorphic symplectic fourfold, deformation equivalent to the Hilbert scheme parametrizing length-two zero-dimensional subschemes of a K3 surface. The homology group H^2(F,Z) is equipped with an integral…

The notion of 'slope rational connectedness' is introduced in the context of smooth orbifold pairs. The main result parallels the characterization of the rational connectedness of projective manifolds in terms of either the non-existence of…

This is, mostly, a survey of results about the birational geometry of rationally connected manifolds, using rational curves analogous to lines in ${\mathbb P}^n$ ({\it quasi-lines}). Various characterizations of a Zariski neighbourhood of a…

Segre proved that a smooth cubic surface over Q is unirational iff it has a rational point. We prove that the result also holds for cubic hypersurfaces over any field, including finite fields.

In this paper we investigate the moduli spaces of semistable coherent sheaves of rank two on the projective space $\mathbb{P}^3$ and the following rational Fano manifolds of the main series - the three-dimensional quadric $X_2$, the…

This is a continuation of "Rational curves on hypersurfaces of low degree", math.AG/0203088. We prove that if d^2+d+1 < n and d > 2, then for a general hypersurface X_d in P^n of degree d, for each degree e the space of rational curves of…

Let W -> X be a real smooth projective threefold fibred by rational curves. Koll\'ar proved that if W(R) is orientable a connected component N of W(R) is essentially either a Seifert fibred manifold or a connected sum of lens spaces. Let k…

In this work, we show that for a certain class of threefolds in positive characteristics, rational-chain-connectivity is equivalent to supersingularity. The same result is known for K3 surfaces with elliptic fibrations. And there are…

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…

We propose an approach for showing rationality of an algebraic variety $X$. We try to cover $X$ by rational curves of certain type and count how many curves pass through a generic point. If the answer is $1$, then we can sometimes reduce…

In this paper, we prove three related results; (1) Extension of our result in [10] to all generic hypersurfaces. More precisely, the normal sheaf of a generic rational map $c_0$ to a generic hypersurface $X_0$ of $\mathbf P^n, n\geq 4$ has…

We give examples of smooth $\k$-unirational line-free quartic hypersurfaces over a non algebraically closed field $\k$. Unlike other methods of proving unirationality, our method does not rely on existence of linear spaces on quartics.

We study rationality properties of quadric surface bundles over the projective plane. We exhibit families of smooth projective complex fourfolds of this type over connected bases, containing both rational and non-rational fibers.

Let $X \subset \mathbb{P}^n$ be a general Fano complete intersection of type $(d_1,\dots, d_k)$. If at least one $d_i$ is greater than $2$, we show that $X$ contains rational curves of degree $e \leq n$ with balanced normal bundle. If all…

We find a relation between a cubic hypersurface $Y$ and its Fano variety of lines $F(Y)$ in the Grothendieck ring of varieties. We prove that if the class of an affine line is not a zero-divisor in the Grothendieck ring of varieties, then…

We prove that the moduli space ${\Cal M}_{g,n}$ of smooth curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points is rational for $g=6$ and $1 \le n \le 8$, and it is unirational for $g=8$ and $1 \le n \le 11$, $g=10$ and $1 \le n \le 3$, $g=12$ and $n…

Let k be a finite field with characteristic exceeding 3. We prove that the space of rational curves of fixed degree on any smooth cubic hypersurface over k with dimension at least 11 is irreducible and of the expected dimension.

We show that each connected component of the moduli space of smooth real binary quintics is isomorphic to an open subset of an arithmetic quotient of the real hyperbolic plane. Moreover, our main result says that the induced metric on this…