Related papers: Classification of Fano 4-folds with Lefschetz defe…

We study smooth, complex Fano 4-folds X with a rational contraction onto a 3-fold, namely a rational map X-->Y that factors as a sequence of flips X-->X' followed by a surjective morphism X'->Y with connected fibers, where Y is normal,…

Let X be a smooth complex Fano 4-fold. We show that if X has a small elementary contraction, then the Picard number rho(X) of X is at most 12. This result is based on a careful study of the geometry of X, on which we give a lot of…

We study (smooth, complex) Fano 4-folds X with Picard number rho(X)>6. We show that if rho(X)>9, then X is a product of del Pezzo surfaces, thus improving recent results by the author and by the author and S.A. Secci; the statement is now…

Let X be a smooth, complex Fano 4-fold, and rho(X) its Picard number. We show that if rho(X)>12, then X is a product of del Pezzo surfaces. The proof relies on a careful study of divisorial elementary contractions f: X->Y such that the…

This note is a short survey on the Lefschetz defect, an invariant of smooth Fano varieties that has been recently introduced; it is related to the Picard number rho(X) of X, and to the Picard number of prime divisors in X. We explain the…

Let X be a complex Fano manifold of arbitrary dimension, and D a prime divisor in X. We consider the image H of N_1(D) in N_1(X) under the natural push-forward of 1-cycles. We show that the codimension c of H in N_1(X) is at most 8.…

We show that Fano 4-folds with Picard number 5 have Lefschetz defect 3 if and only if they are toric of combinatorial type K. We also find a characterization for such varieties in terms of Picard number of prime divisors. Moreover, we…

In this paper we study smooth, complex Fano 4-folds X with large Picard number rho(X), with techniques from birational geometry. Our main result is that if X is isomorphic in codimension one to the blow-up of a smooth projective 4-fold Y at…

Let X be a (smooth, complex) Fano 4-fold. For any prime divisor D in X, consider the image of N_1(D) in N_1(X) under the push-forward of 1-cycles, and let c_D be its codimension in N_1(X). We define an integral invariant c_X of X as the…

We give a complete classification of smooth, complex projective Fano 4-folds of Picard number 3 having a prime divisor of Picard number 1. They form 28 distinct families, and we compute the main numerical invariants, study the base locus of…

Let X be a smooth, complex Fano variety, and delta(X) its Lefschetz defect. It is known that if delta(X) is at least 4, then X is isomorphic to a product SxT, where dim T=dim X-2. In this paper we prove a structure theorem for the case…

We study (smooth, complex) Fano 4-folds X having a rational contraction of fiber type, that is, a rational map X-->Y that factors as a sequence of flips followed by a contraction of fiber type. The existence of such a map is equivalent to…

We classify smooth Fano manifolds X with the Picard number $\rho_X \geq 3$ such that there exists an extremal ray which has a birational contraction that maps a divisor to a point.

Let X be a smooth Fano variety of dimension at least 4. We show that if X has an elementary birational contraction sending a divisor to a curve, then the Picard number of X is smaller or equal to 5.

For $n\geq 4$, let $X$ be a complex smooth Fano $n$-fold whose minimal anticanonical degree of non-free rational curves on $X$ is at least $n-2$. We classify extremal contractions of such varieties. As an application, we obtain a…

We find a characterization for Fano 4-folds $X$ with Lefschetz defect $\delta_{X}=3$: besides the product of two del Pezzo surfaces, they correspond to varieties admitting a conic bundle structure $f\colon X\to Y$ with…

Let X be a Q-factorial Gorenstein Fano variety. Suppose that the singularities of X are canonical and that the locus where they are non-terminal has dimension zero. Let D be a prime divisor of X. We show that rho_X - rho_D < 9 (where rho is…

As a generalization of the Mukai conjecture, we conjecture that the Fano manifolds $X$ which satisfy the property $\rho_X(r_X-1)\geq\dim X-1$ have very special structure, where $\rho_X$ is the Picard number of $X$ and $r_X$ is the index 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.

Let X be a smooth, complex Fano variety. For every prime divisor D in X, we set c(D):=dim ker(r:H^2(X,R)->H^2(D,R)), where r is the natural restriction map, and we define an invariant of X as c_X:=max{c(D)|D is a prime divisor in X}. In a…