In this paper we show that a uniruled manifold with a split tangent bundle admits almost holomorphic fibrations that are related to the splitting. We analyse these fibrations in detail in several special cases, this yields new results about the integrability of the direct factors and the universal covering of the manifold.
Beauville asked if a compact Kähler manifold with split tangent bundle has a universal covering that is a product of manifolds. We use Mori theory and elementary results about holomorphic foliations to study this problem for projective uniruled varieties. In particular we obtain an affirmative answer for rationally connected varieties in any dimension and uniruled varieties in dimension 4.
We prove that smooth, projective, $K$-trivial, weakly ordinary varieties over a perfect field of characteristic $p>0$ are not geometrically uniruled. We also show a singular version of our theorem, which is sharp in multiple aspects. Our work, together with Langer's results, implies that varieties of the above type have strongly semistable tangent bundles with respect to any polarization.
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 start, we discuss existence results for rational curves on foliated manifolds. We construct the tangent morphism, define the variety of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) and name a number of results that show that many of the geometry properies of a uniruled variety are encoded in the projective geometry of the VMRT. The results are then applied in two differen…
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, of our earlier result that a holomorphic map from a rational homogeneous space of Picard number 1 onto a projective manifold different from the projective space must be a biholomorphic map.
A well known result of Miyaoka asserts that a complex projective manifold is uniruled if its cotangent bundle restricted to a general complete intersection curve is not nef. Using the Harder-Narasimhan filtration of the tangent bundle, it can moreover be shown that the choice of such a curve gives rise to a rationally connected foliation of the manifold. In this note we show that, conversely, a movable curve can be found so that the maximal rationally connected fibration of the manifold may be recovered as a term of the associated Harder-Narasimhan filtration of the tangent bundle.
The cotangent bundle of a non-uniruled projective manifold is generically nef, due to a theorem of Miyaoka. We show that the cotangent bundle is actually generically ample, if the manifold is of general type and study in detail the case of intermediate Kodaira dimension. Moreover, manifolds with generically nef and ample tangent bundles are investigated as well as connections to classical theorems on vector fields on projective manifolds.
We investigate the universal cover of projective threefolds whose tangent bundle is a direct sum of subbundles in case the Kodaira dimension is not 1 and 2. We also prove results on Fano manifolds with splitting tangent bundles in any dimension.
In this paper we aim at the description of foliations having tangent sheaf $T\mathcal F$ with $c_1(T\mathcal F)=c_2(T\mathcal F)=0$ on non-uniruled projective manifolds. We prove that the universal covering of the ambient manifold splits as a product, and that the Zariski closure of a general leaf of $\mathcal F$ is an Abelian variety. It turns out that the analytic type of the Zariski closures of leaves may vary from leaf to leaf. We discuss how this variation is related to arithmetic properties of the tangent sheaf of the foliation.
Let X be a compact Kaehler manifold. We expect that any direct sum decomposition of the tangent bundle T(X) comes from a splitting of the universal covering space of X as a product of manifolds, in such a way that the given decomposition of T(X) lifts to the canonical decomposition of the tangent bundle of a product. We prove this assertion when X is a Kaehler-Einstein manifold or a Kaehler surface. Simple examples show that the Kaehler hypothesis is necessary.
1-flat irreducible G-structures, equivalently, irreducible G-structures admitting torsion-free affine connections, have been studied extensively in differential geometry, especially in connection with the theory of affine holonomy groups. We propose to study them in a setting in algebraic geometry, where they arise from varieties of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) associated to families of minimal rational curves on uniruled projective manifolds. We prove that such a structure is locally symmetric when the dimension of the uniruled projective manifold is at least 5. By the classification resu…
We give an explicit parametrization of the Hilbert schemes of rational curves C in P^n having a given splitting type of the restricted tangent bundle from P^n to C. The adopted technique uses the description of such curves as projections of a rational normal curve from a suitable linear vertex and a classification of those vertices that correspond to the required splitting type of the restricted tangent bundle. This classification involves the study of a suitable PGL(2) action on the relevant Grassmannian variety.
This work establishes a structure theorem for compact Kähler manifolds with semipositive anticanonical bundle. Up to finite étale cover, it is proved that such manifolds split holomorphically and isometrically as a product of Ricci flat varieties and of rationally connected manifolds. The proof is based on a characterization of rationally connected manifolds through the non existence of certain twisted contravariant tensor products of the tangent bundle, along with a generalized holonomy principle for pseudoeffective line bundles. A crucial ingredient for this is the characterization of unirul…
Given an immersion $ϕ: P^1 \to ¶^2$, we give new approaches to determining the splitting of the pullback of the cotangent bundle. We also give new bounds on the splitting type for immersions which factor as $ϕ: P^1 \cong D \subset X \to P^2$, where $X \to P^2$ is obtained by blowing up $r$ distinct points $p_i \in P^2$. As applications in the case that the points $p_i$ are generic, we give a complete determination of the splitting types for such immersions when $r \leq 7$. The case that $D^2=-1$ is of particular interest. For $r \leq8$ generic points, it is known that there are only finitely m…
We study complex projective manifolds X that admit surjective endomorphisms f:X->X of degree at least two. In case f is etale, we prove structure theorems that describe X. In particular, a rather detailed description is given if X is a uniruled threefold. As to the ramified case, we first prove a general theorem stating that the vector bundle associated to a Galois covering of projective manifolds is ample (resp. nef) under very mild conditions. This is applied to the study of ramified endomorphisms of Fano manifolds with second Betti number one. It is conjectured that the projective space is …
We study holomorphic foliations of aribitrary codimension in smooth complete toric varieties. We show that split foliations are stable if some good behaviour of their singular set is provided. As an application of these results, we exhibit irreducible components of the space of foliations that arise as pullbacks of some special T-invariant divisors.
Let N a compact complex submanifold of a compact complex manifold M. We say N splits in M, if the holomorphic tangent bundle sequence splits holomorphically. By a result of Mok a splitting submanifold of a Kaehler Einstein manifold with a projective structure is totally geodesic. The classification of all splitting submanifolds of families of fake elliptic curves given here completes the case of threefolds M with a projective structure by a previous result of the authors.
We show that the set of singular holomorphic foliations of the projective spaces with split tangent sheaf and with good singular set is open in the space of holomorphic foliations. As applications we present a generalization of a result by Camacho-Lins Neto about linear pull-back foliations, we give a criterium for the rigidity of $\mathcal L$-foliations of codimension $k \ge 2$ and prove a conjecture by Cerveau-Deserti about the rigidity of a codimension one $\mathcal L$-foliation of $\mathbb P^4$. These results allow us to exhibit some previously unknown irreducible components of the spaces …
We consider the compactification of the E8xE8 heterotic string on a K3 surface with "the spin connection embedded in the gauge group" and the dual picture in the type IIA string (or F-theory) on a Calabi-Yau threefold X. It turns out that the same X arises also as dual to a heterotic compactification on 24 point-like instantons. X is necessarily singular, and we see that this singularity allows the Ramond-Ramond moduli on X to split into distinct components, one containing the (dual of the heterotic) tangent bundle, while another component contains the point-like instantons. As a practical app…
We consider Kobayashi geodesics in the moduli space of abelian varieties A_g that is, algebraic curves that are totally geodesic submanifolds for the Kobayashi metric. We show that Kobayashi geodesics can be characterized as those curves whose logarithmic tangent bundle splits as a subbundle of the logarithmic tangent bundle of A_g. Both Shimura curves and Teichmueller curves are examples of Kobayashi geodesics, but there are other examples. We show moreover that non-compact Kobayashi geodesics always map to the locus of real multiplication and that the Q-irreducibility of the induced variatio…
In this work, we study the deformation theory of $\cE_n$-rings and the $\cE_n$ analogue of the tangent complex, or topological André-Quillen cohomology. We prove a generalization of a conjecture of Kontsevich, that there is a fiber sequence $A[n-1] \ra T_A\ra \hh^*_{\cE_{n}}(A)[n]$, relating the $\cE_n$-tangent complex and $\cE_n$-Hochschild cohomology of an $\cE_n$-ring $A$. We give two proofs: The first is direct, reducing the problem to certain stable splittings of configuration spaces of punctured Euclidean spaces; the second is more conceptual, where we identify the sequence as the Lie al…