Let X be a smooth algebraic variety on which a solvable Lie group acts freely on a dense open orbit. Such varieties include generalized flag varieties, toric varieties, Bott-Samelson varieties, and many spherical varieties, as well as equivariant blow-ups of these. We prove that the space of based holomorphic maps from the Riemann sphere to X approximates in an appropriate sense, both in homology and in homotopy the space of all continuous based maps from the 2-sphere to X, that is the 2-fold loop space of X.
We determine the rational divisor class group of the moduli spaces of smooth pointed hyperelliptic curves and of their Deligne-Mumford compactification, over the field of complex numbers.
Consider the scheme parametrizing non-constant morphisms from a fixed projective curve to a projective surface. There is a rational map between this scheme and the Chow variety of $1$-cycles on the surface. We prove that, if the curve is non-singular, then this rational map is a morphism. As a consequence, we obtain that, if the surface is rational and we fix a divisor class containing a non-singular rational curve, then the scheme parametrizing rational curves on this class is irreducible. Further, if the class has non-negative self-intersection, then the scheme of rational curves has expecte…
Using ideas from the theory of tropical curves and degeneration, we prove that any Fano hypersurface (and more generally Fano complete intersections) is swept by at most quadratic rational curves.
We investigate the possible homological classes of rational curves on the moduli space $X_n=\bar{\mathcal{M}_{0,n}}$ of rational nodal curves with $n$ marked points. In the case of $X_5$ and $X_6$ the relevant homology classes belong to certain polyhedral cones which we describe explicitly. Not all homology classes in the cone correspond to rational curves, but all classes sufficiently far from the walls of the cone do. The proof for $X_5$ is explicit, the proof for $X_6$ was carried out using computers.
The stable rationality of components of the moduli space of (unparametrized) rational curves in projective $n$-space with fixed normal bundle is proved, provided these components dominate the moduli space of immersed rational curves in the plane.
We characterize plane rational curves of degree four with two or more inner Galois points. A computer verifies the existence of plane rational curves of degree four with three inner Galois points. This would be the first example of a curve with exactly three them. Our result implies that Miura's bound is sharp for rational curves.
Given a curve C on a projective nonsingular rational surface S, over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, we are interested in the set Omega_C of linear systems Lambda on S satisfying C is in Lambda, dim Lambda > 0, and the general member of Lambda is a rational curve. The main result of the paper gives a complete description of Omega_C and, in particular, characterizes the curves C for which Omega_C is non empty.
We prove that a semiring isomorphism between the rational function semifields of two tropical curves induces an expansive map between those tropical curves. This semiring isomorphism and the expansive map respect zeros and poles of rational functions with their degrees. As a corollary, we show that the automorphism group of a tropical curve is isomorphic to the $\boldsymbol{T}$-algebra automorphism group of its rational function semifield, where $\boldsymbol{T} := (\boldsymbol{R} \cup \{ -\infty \}, \operatorname{max}, +)$ is the tropical semifield. Finally, we describe all semiring automorphi…
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 with balanced normal bundle, and reprove some results on irreducibility of spaces of rational curves of low degree.
We proved the existence of rational curves in every linear system on a general K3 surface and that all rational curves in the hyperplane class are nodal on a general K3 surface of small genus.
In this paper, we study unirational differential curves and the corresponding differential rational parametrizations. We first investigate basic properties of proper differential rational parametrizations for unirational differential curves. Then we show that the implicitization problem of proper linear differential rational parametric equations can be solved by means of differential resultants. Furthermore, for linear differential curves, we give an algorithm to determine whether an implicitly given linear differential curve is unirational and, in the affirmative case, to compute a proper dif…
We classify all complex surfaces with quotient singularities that do not contain any smooth rational curves, under the assumption that the canonical divisor of the surface is not pseudo-effective. As a corollary we show that if $X$ is a log del Pezzo surface such that for every closed point $p\in X$, there is a smooth curve (locally analytically) passing through $p$, then $X$ contains at least one smooth rational curve.
We study a particular plane curve over a finite field whose normalization is of genus 0. The number of rational points of this curve achieves the Aubry-Perret bound for rational curves. The configuration of its rational points and a generalization of the curve are also presented.
The aim of these notes is to give a introduction to the ideas and techniques of handling rational curves on varieties. The main emphasis is on varieties with many rational curves which are the higher dimensional analogs of rational curves and surfaces. The first six sections closely follow the lectures of J. Kollár given at the summer school ``Higher dimensional varieties and rational points''. The notes were written up by C. Araujo and substantially edited later. Revised version with 2 new sections.
We exploit an elementary specialization technique to study some properties of rational curves on index $n-1$ Fano $n$-folds. We prove a simple formula for counting rational curves passing through a suitable number of points in the case $n=3$. The arguments have immediate deformation theoretic consequences which translate to properties of the normal bundles of such curves.
Submission on request. This Master thesis from 2008 (University of Oslo, Norway) contains no new results, but it provides an overview of plane rational cuspidal curves, in particular curves of low degree. Please note that new results on this topic and the related topic of rational cuspidal curves on Hirzebruch surfaces have been published after this thesis was written.
The purpose of this article is to shed light on the question of how many and what kind of cusps a rational cuspidal curve on a Hirzebruch surface can have. We use birational transformations to construct rational cuspidal curves with four cusps on the Hirzebruch surfaces and find associated results for these curves.
This paper deals with rational curves and birational contractions on irreducible holomorphically symplectic manifold. We survey some recent results about minimal rational curves, their deformations, extremal rays associated with these curves, and the geometry of the Kähler cone.
In this series of three papers we start to investigate the rational Chow ring of the stack consisting of nodal curves of genus 0, in particular we determine completely the rational Chow ring of the substack consisting of curves with at most 3 nodes. In this first paper we construct the stack of rational nodal curves and its stratification by nodes and show that the map from the universal curve to the stack is not representable in the category of schemes.
According to a conjecture of H. Clemens, the dimension of the space of rational curves on a general projective hypersurface should equal the number predicted by a naïve dimension count. In the case of a general hypersurface of degree 7 in $\mathbb{P}^5$, the conjecture predicts that the only rational curves should be lines. This has been verified by Hana and Johnsen for rational curves of degree at most 15. Here we extend their results to show that no rational curves of degree 16 lie on a general heptic fourfold.
In this paper the notion of rational simple connectedness for the quintic Fano threefold $V_5\subset \mathbb{P}^6$ is studied and unirationality of the moduli spaces $\overline{M}_{0,0}^{\text{bir}}(V_5,d)$, with $d \ge 1$, is proved. Many further unirationality results for special moduli spaces of rational curves on quadric hypersurfaces and del Pezzo surfaces are obtained via explicit birational methods.
Let $(X,D)$ be a pair where $X$ is a projective variety. We study in detail how the behavior of rational curves on $X$ as well as the positivity of $-(K_X+D)$ and $D$ influence the behavior of rational curves on $D$. In particular we give criteria for uniruledness and rational connectedness of components of $D$.
This is a continuation of "Rational curves on hypersurfaces of low degree", math.AG/0203088. We prove that if d^2+d+1 < n and d > 2, then for a general hypersurface X_d in P^n of degree d, for each degree e the space of rational curves of degree e on X is itself a rationally connected variety.
Let $W$ be a subset of the set of real points of a real algebraic variety $X$. We investigate which functions $f: W \to \mathbb R$ are the restrictions of rational functions on $X$. We introduce two new notions: ${\it curve-rational \, functions}$ (i.e., continuous rational on algebraic curves) and ${\it arc-rational\, functions}$ (i.e., continuous rational on arcs of algebraic curves). We prove that under mild assumptions the following classes of functions coincide: continuous hereditarily rational (introduced recently by the first named author), curve-rational and arc-rational. In particular…
As in our previous work [1] we address the problem to determine the splitting of the normal bundle of rational curves. With apolarity theory we are able to characterize some particular subvarieties in some Hilbert scheme of rational curves, defined by the splitting type of the normal bundle and the restricted tangent bundle.
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 give a construction of singular curves with many rational points over finite fields. This construction enables us to prove some results on the maximum number of rational points on an absolutely irreducible projective algebraic curve defined over Fq of geometric genus g and arithmetic genus $π$.
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 the Zariski topology under this structure.
This work is a PhD thesis. First we provide some general context on wonderful varieties and moduli spaces of rational curves. Working over complex numbers we prove that the moduli space of rational curves with no marked points on the wonderful compactification of a symmetric space is not irreducible in general. Lastly we show that in the case of wonderful group compactifications the set of rational curves with no marked points and irreducible source is irreducible.
For a smooth projective curve C with genus g >= 2 and a degree 1 line bundle L on C, let M := SU_{C}(r;L) be the moduli space of stable vector bundles of rank r and with the fixed determinant L. In this paper, we study the small rational curves on M and estimate the codimension of the locus of the small rational curves. In particular, we determine all small rational curves when r = 3.
This is a continuation of "Rational families of vector bundles on curves, I". Let C be a smooth projective curve of genus at least 2 and let M be the moduli space of rank 2, stable vector bundles on C, with fixed determinant of degree 1. For any k>0, we find all the irreducible components of the space of rational curves of degree k on M and their maximal rationally connected quotients.
We study extremality properties of covering families of rational curves on projective varieties. Among others, we show that on a normal and Q-factorial projective variety of dimension at most 4, every covering and quasi-unsplit family of rational curves generates a geometric extremal ray of the Mori cone.
We develop a mixed-characteristic version of the Mori-Mukai technique for producing rational curves on K3 surfaces. We reduce modulo p, produce rational curves on the resulting K3 surface over a finite field, and lift to characteristic zero. As an application, we prove that all complex K3 surfaces with Picard group generated by a class of degree two have an infinite number of rational curves.
We prove that the moduli spaces of rational curves of degree at most $3$ in linear sections of the Grassmannian $Gr(2,5)$ are all rational varieties. We also study their compactifications and birational geometry.
We show the existence of 112 non-singular rational curves on the supersingular K3 surface with Artin invariant 1 in characteristic 3 by several ways. Using these rational curves, we have a $(16)_{10}$-configuration and a $(280_{4}, 112_{10})$-configuration on the K3 surface. Moreover we study the Picard lattice by using the theory of the Leech lattice. The 112 non-singular rational curves correspond to 112 Leech roots.
We study the existence of Khovanskii-finite valuations for rational curves of arithmetic genus two. We provide a semi-explicit description of the locus of degree $n+2$ rational curves in $\mathbb{P}^n$ of arithmetic genus two that admit a Khovanskii-finite valuation. Furthermore, we describe an effective method for determining if a rational curve of arithmetic genus two defined over a number field admits a Khovanskii-finite valuation. This provides a criterion for deciding if such curves admit a toric degeneration. Finally, we show that rational curves with a single unibranched singularity are…
It is a well-known fact that families of minimal rational curves on rational homogeneous manifolds of Picard number one are uniform, in the sense that the tangent bundle to the manifold has the same splitting type on each curve of the family. In this note we prove that certain --stronger-- uniformity conditions on a family of minimal rational curves on a Fano manifold of Picard number one allow to prove that the manifold is homogeneous.
We run Mori's program for the moduli space of pointed stable rational curves with divisor $K +\sum a_{i}ψ_{i}$. We prove that, without assuming the F-conjecture, the birational model for the pair is the Hassett's moduli space of weighted pointed stable rational curves, without any modification of weight coefficients.
We prove the following statement, predicted by Clemens' conjecture: A generic quintic threefold contains only finitely many smooth rational curves of degree 12.
In this paper we compute the number of rational curves with one node passing through a given number of points, lines and tangent to a given number of planes in $\mathbb{P}^3$.
We show that a smooth projective complex manifold of dimension greater than two endowed with an elliptic fiber space structure and with finite fundamental group always contains a rational curve, provided its canonical bundle is relatively trivial. As an application of this result, we prove that any Calabi-Yau manifold that admits a fibration onto a curve whose general fibers are abelian varieties always contains a rational curve.
For a very general product $A$ of seven or more elliptic curves, every rational curve on the Kummer variety of $A$ projects trivially onto the Kummer variety of at least one of its factors. As a consequence, a very general member of certain families of abelian varieties parametrized by connected Shimura varieties of unitary type has the property that its Kummer variety has no rational curves.
We proved that the union of rational curves is dense on a very general K3 surface and the union of elliptic curves is dense in the 1st jet space of a very general K3 surface, both in the strong topology.
We prove the "strong form" of the Clemens conjecture in degree 10. Namely, on a general quintic threefold F in P^4, there are only finitely many smooth rational curves of degree 10, and each curve is embedded in F with normal bundle O(-1)^2. Moreover, in degree 10, there are no singular, reduced, and irreducible rational curves, nor any reduced, reducible, and connected curves with rational components in F.
To every rational complex curve $C \subset (\mathbf{C}^\times)^n$ we associate a rational tropical curve $Γ\subset \mathbf{R}^n$ so that the amoeba $\mathcal{A}(C) \subset \mathbf{R}^n$ of $C$ is within a bounded distance from $Γ$. In accordance with the terminology introduced by Passare and Rullgård, we call $Γ$ the spine of $\mathcal{A}(C)$. We use spines to describe tropical limits of sequences of rational complex curves.
We prove an elementary method to classify, up to rigid isotopy, all nodal degree 4 real rational curves in $\mathbb{RP}^2$ that have only real double points. We show how to associate a chord diagram to a nodal real degree 4 planar rational curve and prove that such curves are defined up to rigid isotopy by their chord diagrams.
