Related papers: On the birational geometry of conic bundles over t…

We prove that a holomorphic line bundle on a projective manifold is pseudo-effective if and only if its degree on any member of a covering family of curves is non-negative. This is a consequence of a duality statement between the cone of…

We study the unirationality of surface conic bundles $\pi\colon S\to\mathbb P^1$ over an arbitrary field $k$ with discriminant degree $d_S=8$, the first case beyond the del Pezzo range. We divide these surfaces in four families and produce…

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…

Let k be an arbitrary field of characteristic zero. In this paper we study quotients of k-rational conic bundles over projective line by finite groups of automorphisms. We construct smooth minimal models for such quotients. We show that any…

Let $S$ be a non-uniruled (i.e., non-birationally ruled) smooth projective surface. We show that the tangent bundle $T_S$ is pseudo-effective if and only if the canonical divisor $K_S$ is nef and the second Chern class vanishes, i.e.,…

For a semialgebraic set K in R^n, let P_d(K) be the cone of polynomials in R^n of degrees at most d that are nonnegative on K. This paper studies the geometry of its boundary. When K=R^n and d is even, we show that its boundary lies on the…

In this paper we study the positivity of the cotangent bundle of projective manifolds. We conjecture that the cotangent bundle is pseudoeffective if and only the manifold has non-zero symmetric differentials. We confirm this conjecture for…

Let D = {D_{1},...,D_{l}} be an arrangement of smooth hypersurfaces with normal crossings on the complex projective space P^n and let \Omega^{1}_{P^n}(log D) be the logarithmic bundle attached to it. Following [1], we show that…

For a nonsingular hypersurface $X \subset \mathbb{P}^n, n \geq 4,$ of degree $d \geq 2$, we show that the space $H^1(X, \End(T_X))$ of infinitesimal deformations of the tangent bundle $T_X$ has dimension ${n+d-1 \choose d} (d-1)$ and all…

Let $X$ be a general conic bundle over the projective plane with branch curve of degree at least 19. We prove that there is no normal projective variety $Y$ that is birational to $X$ and such that some multiple of its anticanonical divisor…

We compute some numerical invariants of the lines on hyperplane sections of a smooth cubic threefold over complex numbers. We also prove that for any smooth hypersurface $X\subset \mathbb P^{n+1}$ of degree $d$ over an algebraically closed…

We prove an effective bound for the degree of a smooth divisor of a hypersurface of P^n, n>4 (projective space over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero). Our result follows from a strong (since the degree of the divisor is…

We show that the anti-canonical bundle of any $\mathbb Q$-factorial surface is numerically effective if and only if it is pseudo-effective. To prove this, we establish a numerical non-vanishing theorem for surfaces polarized with…

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…

P. Ellia and G.Sacchiero have shown that if $S$ is a smooth surface in $\Pn 4$ which is ruled in conics, then $S$ has degree 4 or 5. In this paper we give a proof of this result combining the ideas of Ellia and Sacchiero as they are used in…

We classify all positive integers n and r such that (stably) non-rational complex r-fold quadric bundles over rational n-folds exist. We show in particular that for any n and r, a wide class of smooth r-fold quadric bundles over projective…

We isolate a class of smooth rational cubic fourfolds X containing a plane whose associated quadric surface bundle does not have a rational section. This is equivalent to the nontriviality of the Brauer class of the even Clifford algebra…

We investigate the complement of the discriminant in the projective space PSym^d C^{n+1} of polynomials defining hypersurfaces of degree d in P^n. Following the ideas of Zariski we are able to give a presentation for the fundamental group…

We show that if $f\colon X \to T$ is a surjective morphism between smooth projective varieties over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $p>0$ with geometrically integral and non-uniruled generic fiber, then $K_{X/T}$ is…

We construct examples of projective toric surfaces whose blow-up at a general point has a non-polyhedral pseudo-effective cone, both in characteristic $0$ and in every prime characteristic $p$. As a consequence, we prove that the…