Related papers: Rational curves of minimal degree and characteriza…

Let X be a projective variety which is covered by rational curves, for instance a Fano manifold over the complex numbers. In this setup, characterization and classification problems lead to the natural question: "Given two points on X, how…

We shall show that the variety of minimal rational tangents on a complete toric manifold X is linear and minimal components in RatCurves^n(X) corresponds bijectively to some special primitive collections in the fan defining X.

This survey paper discusses some of the recent progress in the study of rational curves on algebraic varieties. It was written for the survey volume of the priority programme "Global Methods in Complex Geometry", supported by the DFG. To…

Consider a simple algebraic group G of adjoint type, and its wonderful compactification X. We show that X admits a unique family of minimal rational curves, and we explicitly describe the subfamily consisting of curves through a general…

This is a survey of recent works on the germ-equivalence problem of minimal rational curves on uniruled projective manifolds. Our main interest is when the associated varieties of minimal rational tangents form an isotrivial family of…

We study the minimal degrees and gonalities of curves on complete intersections. We prove a classical conjecture which asserts that the degree of any curve on a general complete intersection $X \subseteq \mathbb{P}^N$ cut out by polynomials…

It is well known that one can find a rational normal curve in $\mathbb P^n$ through $n+3$ general points. We prove a generalization of this to higher dimensional varieties, showing that smooth varieties of minimal degree can be interpolated…

Let $X$ be a projective variety with log terminal singularities and vanishing augmented irregularity. In this paper we prove that if $X$ admits a relatively minimal genus one fibration then it does contain a subvariety of codimension one…

Complex contact manifolds have recently received considerable attention. Many of the newer publications approach contact manifolds via the covering family of minimal rational curves. This short note furthers the study of these curves. It is…

Suppose $X$ is a smooth projective connected curve defined over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $p>0$ and $B \subset X(k)$ is a finite, possibly empty, set of points. The Newton polygon of a degree $p$ Galois cover of…

Let $\phi: X \to \mathbb P^n$ be a double cover branched along a smooth hypersurface of degree $2m, 2 \leq m \leq n-1$. We study the varieties of minimal rational tangents $\mathcal C_x \subset \mathbb P T_x(X)$ at a general point $x$ of…

These lectures give a short introduction to the study of curves on algebraic varieties. After an elementary proof of the dimension formula for the space of curves, we summarize the basic properties of uniruled and of rationally connected…

For a uniruled projective manifold, we prove that a general rational curve of minimal degree through a general point is uniquely determined by its tangent vector. As applications, among other things we give a new proof, using no Lie theory,…

We prove a numerical characterization of $\mathbb{P}^n$ for varieties with at worst isolated local complete intersection quotient singularities. In dimension three, we prove such a numerical characterization of $\mathbb{P}^3$ for normal…

We completely classify all plane curves of degree at most 30 with a unique cuspidal (locally unibranch) singular point and rational normalization in terms of the Newton pairs parameterizing the cusp. We distinguish between prime and…

We construct the canonical structure of an irreducible projective variety on the set of connected curves of degree $d$ in $\Bbb P^n$ with rational components (some components can be multiple). The set of rational curves is open subset in…

Given a smooth projective variety $X$ over a number field $k$ and $P\in X(k)$, the first author conjectured that in a precise sense, any sequence that approximates $P$ sufficiently well must lie on a rational curve. We prove this conjecture…

We determine all of lines in the moduli space $M$ of stable bundles for arbitrary rank and degree. A further application of minimal rational curves is also given in last section.

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…

The purpose of this paper is to translate positivity properties of the tangent bundle (and the anti-canonical bundle) of an algebraic manifold into existence and movability properties of rational curves and to investigate the impact on the…