A horospherical variety is a normal algebraic variety where a reductive algebraic group acts with an open orbit which is a torus bundle over a flag variety. For example, toric varieties and flag varieties are horospherical. In this paper, we classify Fano horospherical varieties in terms of certain rational polytopes that generalize the reflexive polytopes considered by V. Batyrev. Then, we obtain an upper bound on the degree of smooth Fano horospherical varieties, analogus to that given by O. Debarre in the toric case. We extend a recent result of C. Casagrande: the Picard number of any Fano Q-factorial horospherical variety is bounded by twice the dimension.
We prove a conjecture of L.Bonavero, C. Casagrande, O. Debarre and S. Druel, on the pseudo-index of smooth Fano varieties, in the special case of horospherical varieties.
Recently, Kanemitsu has discovered a counterexample to the long-standing conjecture that the tangent bundle of a Fano manifold of Picard number one is (semi)stable. His counterexample is a smooth horospherical variety. There is a weaker conjecture that the tangent bundle of a Fano manifold of Picard number one is simple. We prove that this weaker conjecture is valid for smooth horospherical varieties of Picard number one. Our proof follows from the existence of an irreducible family of unbendable rational curves whose tangent vectors span the tangent spaces of the horospherical variety at gene…
Property $\mathcal{O}$ for an arbitrary complex, Fano manifold $X$, is a statement about the eigenvalues of the linear operator obtained from the quantum multiplication of the anticanonical class of $X$. Conjecture $\mathcal{O}$ is a conjecture that Property $\mathcal{O}$ holds for any Fano variety. Pasquier listed the smooth non-homogeneous horospherical varieties of Picard rank 1 into five classes. Conjecture $\mathcal{O}$ has already been shown to hold for the odd symplectic Grassmannians which is one of these classes. We will show that Conjecture $\mathcal{O}$ holds for two more classes an…
A horospherical variety is a normal algebraic variety where a connected reductive algebraic group acts with an open orbit isomorphic to a torus bundle over a flag variety. In this article we study the cohomology of line bundles on complete horospherical varieties.
We give two simple geometric constructions of a smooth family of projective varieties with central fiber isomorphic to the horospherical variety of type $\mathrm{G}_2$ and all other fibers isomorphic to the isotropic orthogonal Grassmannian $\mathrm{OGr}(2,7)$ and discuss briefly the derived category of this family.
We present geometric realizations of horospherical two-orbit varieties, by showing that their blow-up along the unique closed-invariant orbit is the zero locus of a general section of a homogeneous vector bundle over some auxiliary variety. As an application, we compute the cohomology ring of the $G_2$-variety, including its quantum version. We also consider the Spin$_7$-variety, which deserves a different treatment.
We investigate flexibility of affine varieties with an action of a linear algebraic group. Flexibility of a smooth affine variety with only constant invertible functions and a locally transitive action of a reductive group is proved. Also we show that a normal affine complexity-zero horospherical variety is flexible.
Geometric structures modeled on rational homogeneous manifolds are studied to characterize rational homogeneous manifolds and to prove their deformation rigidity. To generalize these characterizations and deformation rigidity results to quasihomogeneous varieties, we first study horospherical varieties and geometric structures modeled on horospherical varieties. Using Cartan geometry, we prove that a geometric structure modeled on a smooth projective horospherical variety of Picard number one is locally equivalent to the standard geometric structure when the geometric structure is defined on a…
We obtain a combinatorial description of Gorenstein spherical Fano varieties in terms of certain polytopes, generalizing the combinatorial description of Gorenstein toric Fano varieties by reflexive polytopes and its extension to Gorenstein horospherical Fano varieties due to Pasquier. Using this description, we show that the rank of the Picard group of an arbitrary $d$-dimensional $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial Gorenstein spherical Fano variety is bounded by $2d$. This paper also contains an overview of the description of the natural representative of the anticanonical divisor class of a spherical va…
We describe smooth projective horospherical varieties with Picard number 1. Moreover we prove that the automorphism group of any such variety acts with at most two orbits and we give a geometric characterisation of non-homogeneous ones.
In a previous work, we described the Minimal Model Program in the family of $\Qbb$-Gorenstein projective horospherical varieties, by studying certain continuous changes of moment polytopes of polarized horospherical varieties. Here, we summarize the results of the previous work and we explain how to generalize them in order to describe the Log Minimal Model Program for pairs $(X,\D)$ when $X$ is a projective horospherical variety.
In this paper we describe orbits of automorphism group on a horospherical variety in terms of degrees of homogeneous with respect to natural grading locally nilpotent derivations. In case of (may be non-normal) toric varieties a description of orbits of automorphism group in terms of corresponding weight monoid is obtained.
Let $X$ be a horospherical $G$-variety and let $D$ be an effective $\mathbb{Q}$-divisor of $X$ that is stable under the action of a Borel subgroup $B$ of $G$ and such that $D+K\_X$ is $\mathbb{Q}$-Cartier. We prove, using Bott-Samelson resolutions, that the pair $(X,D)$ is klt if and only if $\lfloor D\rfloor=0$
We describe the Minimal Model Program in the family of $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein projective horospherical varieties, by studying a family of polytopes defined from the moment polytope of a Cartier divisor of the variety we begin with. In particular, we generalize the results on MMP in toric varieties due to M. Reid, and we complete the results on MMP in spherical varieties due to M. Brion in the case of horospherical varieties.
In 2013 Bazhov proved a criterium for two points on a complete toric variety to lie in the same orbit of the neutral component of automorphism group. This criterium is in terms of divisor class group. Arzhantsev-Bazhov (2013) obtained a similar criterium for affine toric varieties. We prove a necessary condition similar this criteria to the cases of affine and projective horospherical varieties.
For arbitrary connected reductive group G we consider the motivic integral over the arc space of an arbitrary Q-Gorenstein horospherical G-variety associated with a colored fan and prove a formula for the stringy E-function of a horospherical variety X which generalizes the one for toric varieties. We remark that in contrast to toric varieties the stringy E-function of a Gorenstein horospherical variety X may be not a polynomial if some cones in the fan of X have nonempty sets of colors. Using the stringy E-function, we can formulate and prove a new smoothness criterion for locally factorial h…
In this paper we determine the stringy motivic volume of log terminal horospherical $G$-varieties of complexity one, where $G$ is a connected reductive linear algebraic group. The stringy motivic volume of a log terminal variety is an invariant of singularities which was introduced by Batyrev and plays an important role in mirror symmetry for Calabi--Yau varieties. A horospherical $G$-variety of complexity one is a normal $G$-variety which is equivariantly birational to a product $C \times G/H$, where $C$ is a smooth projective curve and the closed subgroup $H$ contains a maximal unipotent sub…
We show that nef cycle classes on smooth complete spherical varieties are effective, and the products of nef cycle classes are also nef. Let X be a smooth projective spherical variety such that its effective cycle classes of codimension k are nef, where 1<= k <= dim(X)-1. We study the properties of X. And we show that if X is a toric variety, then X is isomorphic to the product of some projective spaces; if X is toroidal, then X is isomorphic to a rational homogeneous space; if X is horospherical, dim(X)>= 3 and k=2, then effective divisors on X are nef; if X is horospherical and effective div…
The Debarre-de Jong conjecture predicts that the Fano variety of lines on a smooth Fano hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^n$ is always of the expected dimension. We generalize this conjecture to the case of Fano complete intersections and prove that for a Fano complete intersection $X\subset \mathbb{P}^n$ of hypersurfaces whose degrees sum to at most 7, the Fano variety of lines on $X$ has the expected dimension.
Let $G$ be a connected reductive complex algebraic group. This paper is part of a project devoted to the space $Z$ of meromorphic quasimaps from a curve into an affine spherical $G$-variety $X$. The space $Z$ may be thought of as an algebraic model for the loop space of $X$. The theory we develop associates to $X$ a connected reductive complex algebraic subgroup $\check H$ of the dual group $\check G$. The construction of $\check H$ is via Tannakian formalism: we identify a certain tensor category $Q(Z)$ of perverse sheaves on $Z$ with the category of finite-dimensional representations of $\ch…
In this text we prove that if a smooth cubic in $\PR^5$ has its Fano variety of lines birational to the Hilbert scheme of two points on a K3 surface, then there exists a smooth projective curve or a smooth projective surface embedded in the Fano variety, such that the kernel of the push-forward (at the level of zero cycles ) induced by the closed embedding is torsion.
We describe the set of Mori structures for a Fano 3-fold of index 2 and degree 1 (the double cone over the Veronese surface). In partiular, it is proved that such a Fano variety is not rational, the group of birational automorphisms coincides with the group of biregular automorphisms, and there are no structures of conic bundle.
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 Fano variety of lines on a smooth rational cubic fourfold is birational to a Hilbert scheme of two points on a K3 surface; in particular, general cubic fourfold is irrational.
We prove that the Fano variety of lines of a cuspidal cyclic cubic fourfold is a symplectic variety with transversal A2-singularities and we study the properties of the nonsymplectic order three automorphism induced by the covering automorphism on the irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifold obtained by blowing up the singular locus.
Pasquier and Perrin discovered that the ${\rm G}_2$-horospherical manifold ${\bf X}$ of Picard number 1 can be realized as a smooth specialization of the rational homogeneous space parameterizing the lines on the 5-dimensional hyperquadric, in other words, it can be deformed nontrivially to the rational homogeneous space. We show that ${\bf X}$ is the only smooth projective variety with this property. This is obtained as a consequence of our main result that ${\bf X}$ can be recognized by its VMRT, namely, a Fano manifold of Picard number 1 is biregular to ${\bf X}$ if and only if its VMRT at …
Let $X$ be a smooth cubic hypersurface, and let $F$ be the Fano variety of lines on $X$. We establish a relation between the Chow motives of $X$ and $F$. This relation implies in particular that if $X$ has finite-dimensional motive (in the sense of Kimura), then $F$ also has finite-dimensional motive. This proves finite-dimensionality for motives of Fano varieties of cubics of dimension $3$ and $5$, and of certain cubics in other dimensions.
An almost Fano bundle is a vector bundle on a smooth projective variety that its projectivization is an almost Fano variety. In this paper, we prove that almost Fano bundles exist only on almost Fano manifolds and study rank 2 almost Fano bundles over projective spaces.
We show that a certain compactification $\mathfrak{X}_g$ of the $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})$ free group character variety $\mathcal{X}(F_g, \mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C}))$ is Fano. This compactification has been studied previously by the second author, and separately by Biswas, Lawton, and Ramras. Part of the proof of this result involves the construction of a large family of integral reflexive polytopes.
We prove that a weak Fano manifold has unobstructed deformations. For a general variety, we investigate conditions under which a variety is necessarily obstructed.
In this paper, we prove a general principle of lifting an automorphism from positive characteristic to zero characteristic. We based on the principle to prove the automorphism group of Fano variety of cubic threefold (fourfold) acts on its cohomology group faithfully. We also prove the same result for a singular cubic threefold (fourfold) with one ordinary double singularity. As an application, we classify the automorphism groups of cubic fourfolds with small middle Picard number over complex numbers.
This note is about cycle-theoretic properties of the Fano variety of lines on a smooth cubic fivefold. The arguments are based on the fact that this Fano variety has finite-dimensional motive. We also present some results concerning Chow groups of Fano varieties of lines on certain cubics in other dimensions.
We prove that the derived category of a smooth complete intersection variety is equivalent to a full subcategory of the derived category of a smooth projective Fano variety. This enables us to define some new invariants of smooth projective varieties and raise many interesting questions.
The purpose of this paper is to give basic tools for the classification of nonsingular toric Fano varieties by means of the notions of primitive collections and primitive relations due to Batyrev. By using them we can easily deal with equivariant blow-ups and blow-downs, and get an easy criterion to determine whether a given nonsingular toric variety is a Fano variety or not. As applications of these results, we get a toric version of a theorem of Mori, and can classify, in principle, all nonsingular toric Fano varieties obtained from a given nonsingular toric Fano variety by finite succession…
In this paper, we study the structure of Fano fibrations of varieties admitting an int-amplified endomorphism. We prove that if a normal $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial klt projective variety $X$ has an int-amplified endomorphism, then there exists an étale in codimension one finite morphism $\widetilde{X} \to X$ such that $\widetilde{X}$ is of Fano type over its albanese variety. As a corollary, if we further assume that $X$ is smooth and rationally connected, then $X$ is of Fano type.
Let F(X_d) be a smooth Fano variety of lines of a hypersurface X_d of degree d. In this paper, we prove the Griffiths group Griff_1(F(X_d)) is trivial if the hypersurface X_d is of 2-Fano type. As a result, we give a positive answer to a question of Professor Voisin about the first Griffiths groups of Fano varieties in some cases. Base on this result, we prove that CH_2(X_d)=\mathbb{Z} for a complex smooth $3$-Fano hypersurface X_d whose Fano variety of lines is smooth.
The regularity of a Fano variety, denoted by ${\rm reg}(X)$, is the largest dimension of the dual complex of a log Calabi--Yau structure on $X$. The coregularity is defined to be \[ {\rm coreg}(X):= \dim X - {\rm reg}(X)-1. \] The coregularity is the complementary dimension of the regularity. We expect that the coregularity of a Fano variety governs, to a large extent, the geometry of $X$. In this note, we review the history of Fano varieties, give some examples, survey some important theorems, introduce the coregularity, and propose several problems regarding this invariant of Fano varieties.
Given any field $k$ (not necessarily perfect), we study the smoothing of a semistable Fano variety over $k$. In characteristic 0, the reduced semistable Fano degenerate fibers of Mori fibrations are classified. In positive characteristic, under a suitable $W_2$ lifting assumption, we prove that a semistable Fano variety always appears as a degenerate fiber in a semistable family if it has a global log structure (in the sense of Fontaine-Illusie-Kato) of semistable type. A similar smoothing result over a mixed characteristic base is also obtained.
We show that deformations of a surjective morphism onto a Fano manifold of Picard number 1 are unobstructed and rigid modulo the automorphisms of the target, if the variety of minimal rational tangents of the Fano manifold is non-linear or finite. The condition on the variety of minimal rational tangents holds for practically all known examples of Fano manifolds of Picard number 1, except the projective space. When the variety of minimal rational tangents is non-linear, the proof is based on an earlier result of N. Mok and the author on the birationality of the tangent map. When the varieties …
The symmetric projective varieties of rank one are all smooth and Fano by a classic result of Akhiezer. We classify the locally factorial (respectively smooth) projective symmetric $G$-varieties of rank 2 which are Fano. When $G$ is semisimple we classify also the locally factorial (respectively smooth) projective symmetric $G$-varieties of rank 2 which are only quasi-Fano. Moreover, we classify the Fano symmetric $G$-varieties of rank 3 obtainable from a wonderful variety by a sequence of blow-ups along $G$-stable varieties. Finally, we classify the Fano symmetric varieties of arbitrary rank …
For a variety $X$, a big $\mathbb{Q}$-divisor $L$ and a closed connected subgroup $G \subset \mathrm{Aut}(X, L)$ we define a $G$-invariant version of the $δ$-threshold. We prove that for a Fano variety $(X, -K_X)$ and a connected subgroup $G \subset \mathrm{Aut}(X)$ this invariant characterizes $G$-equivariant uniform $K$-stability. We also use this invariant to investigate $G$-equivariant $K$-stability of some Fano varieties with large groups of symmetries, including spherical Fano varieties. We also consider the case of $G$ being a finite group.
We provide a sufficient condition for a general hypersurface in a $\mathbb Q$-Fano toric variety to be a Calabi-Yau variety in terms of its Newton polytope. Moreover, we define a generalization of the Berglund-Hübsch-Krawitz construction in case the ambient is a $\mathbb Q$-Fano toric variety with torsion free class group and the defining polynomial is not necessarily of Delsarte type. Finally, we introduce a duality between families of Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces which includes both Batyrev and Berglund-Hübsch-Krawitz mirror constructions. This is given in terms of a polar duality between pairs …
We associate to any complete spherical variety $X$ a certain nonnegative rational number $\wp(X)$, which we conjecture to satisfy the inequality $\wp(X) \le \operatorname{dim} X - \operatorname{rank} X$ with equality holding if and only if $X$ is isomorphic to a toric variety. We show that, for spherical varieties, our conjecture implies the generalized Mukai conjecture on the pseudo-index of smooth Fano varieties due to Bonavero, Casagrande, Debarre, and Druel. We also deduce from our conjecture a smoothness criterion for spherical varieties. It follows from the work of Pasquier that our conj…
A classical result of Bondal-Orlov states that a standard flip in birational geometry gives rise to a fully faithful functor between derived categories of coherent sheaves. We complete their embedding into a semiorthogonal decomposition by describing the complement. As an application, we can lift the "quadratic Fano correspondence" (due to Galkin-Shinder) in the Grothendieck ring of varieties between a smooth cubic hypersurface, its Fano variety of lines, and its Hilbert square, to a semiorthogonal decomposition. We also show that the Hilbert square of a cubic hypersurface of dimension at leas…
Levi subgroup actions on Schubert varieties are studied. In the case of partial flag varieties, the horospherical actions are determined. This leads to a characterization of the toroidal and horospherical partial flag varieties with Picard number 1. In the more general case, we provide a set of necessary conditions for the action of a Levi subgroup on a Schubert variety to be toroidal. The singular locus of a (co)minuscule Schubert variety is shown to contain all the $L_{max}$-stable Schubert subvarieties, where $L_{max}$ is the standard Levi subgroup of the maximal parabolic which acts on the…
