We conjecture that the exceptional set in Manin's conjecture has an explicit geometric description. Our proposal includes the rational point contributions from any generically finite map with larger geometric invariants. We prove that this set is contained in a thin subset of rational points, verifying that there is no counterexample to Manin's conjecture which arises from an incompatibility of geometric invariants.

Let $ {\mathbb {C}}^{n+1}_o$ denote the germ of $ {\mathbb {C}}^{n+1}$ at the origin. Let $V$ be a hypersurface germ in $ {\mathbb {C}}^{n+1}_o$ and $W$ a deformation of $V$ over $ {\mathbb {C}}_{o}^{m}$. Under the hypothesis that $W$ is a Newton non-degenerate deformation, in this article we prove that $W$ is a $\mu$-constant deformation if and only if $W$ admits a simultaneous embedded resolution. This result gives a lot of information about $W$, for example, the topological triviality of the family $W$ and the fact that the natural morphism $(\operatorname {W( {\mathbb {C}}_{o})}_{m})_{{\rm red}}\rightarrow {\mathbb {C}}_{o}$ is flat, where $\operatorname {W( {\mathbb {C}}_{o})}_{m}$ is the relative space of $m$-jets. On the way to the proof of our main result, we give a complete answer to a question of Arnold on the monotonicity of Newton numbers in the case of convenient Newton polyhedra.

We present a framework for tame geometry on Henselian valued fields, which we call Hensel minimality. In the spirit of o-minimality, which is key to real geometry and several diophantine applications, we develop geometric results and applications for Hensel minimal structures that were previously known only under stronger, less axiomatic assumptions. We show the existence of t-stratifications in Hensel minimal structures and Taylor approximation results that are key to non-Archimedean versions of Pila–Wilkie point counting, Yomdin’s parameterization results and motivic integration. In this first paper, we work in equi-characteristic zero; in the sequel paper, we develop the mixed characteristic case and a diophantine application.

We study derived categories of Gorenstein varieties $X$ and $X^+$ connected by a flop. We assume that the flopping contractions $f\colon X\to Y$, $f^+ \colon X^+ \to Y$ have fibers of dimension bounded by one and $Y$ has canonical hypersurface singularities of multiplicity two. We consider the fiber product $W=X\times _YX^+$ with projections $p\colon W\to X$, $p^+\colon W\to X^+$ and prove that the flop functors $F = Rp^+_*Lp^* \colon {\mathcal {D}}^b(X) \to {\mathcal {D}}^b(X^+)$, $F^+= Rp_*L{p^+}^* \colon {\mathcal {D}}^b(X^+) \to {\mathcal {D}}^b(X)$ are equivalences, inverse to those constructed by Van den Bergh. The composite $F^+ \circ F \colon {\mathcal {D}}^b(X) \to {\mathcal {D}}^b(X)$ is a non-trivial auto-equivalence. When variety $Y$ is affine, we present $F^+ \circ F$ as the spherical cotwist of a spherical couple $(\Psi ^*,\Psi )$ which involves a spherical functor $\Psi$ constructed by deriving the inclusion of the null category $\mathscr {A}_f$ of sheaves ${\mathcal {F}} \in \mathop {{\rm Coh}}\nolimits (X)$ with $Rf_*({\mathcal {F}} )=0$ into $\mathop {{\rm Coh}}\nolimits (X)$. We construct a spherical pair (${\mathcal {D}}^b(X)$, ${\mathcal {D}}^b(X^+)$) in the quotient ${\mathcal {D}}^b(W) /{\mathcal {K}}^b$, where ${\mathcal {K}}^b$ is the common kernel of the derived push-forwards for the projections to $X$ and $X^+$, thus implementing in geometric terms a schober for the flop. A technical innovation of the paper is the $L^1f^*f_*$ vanishing for Van den Bergh's projective generator. We construct a projective generator in the null category and prove that its endomorphism algebra is the contraction algebra.

We prove the Kawamata–Viehweg vanishing theorem for surfaces of del Pezzo type over perfect fields of positive characteristic $p>5$. As a consequence, we show that klt threefold singularities over a perfect base field of characteristic $p>5$ are rational. We show that these theorems are sharp by providing counterexamples in characteristic $5$.

We introduce a notion of embedding codimension of an arbitrary local ring, establish some general properties and study in detail the case of arc spaces of schemes of finite type over a field. Viewing the embedding codimension as a measure of singularities, our main result can be interpreted as saying that the singularities of the arc space are maximal at the arcs that are fully embedded in the singular locus of the underlying scheme, and progressively improve as we move away from said locus. As an application, we complement a theorem of Drinfeld, Grinberg and Kazhdan on formal neighbourhoods in arc spaces by providing a converse to their theorem, an optimal bound for the embedding codimension of the formal model appearing in the statement, a precise formula for the embedding dimension of the model constructed in Drinfeld’s proof and a geometric meaningful way of realising the decomposition stated in the theorem.

In this paper we apply Conley index theory in a covering space of an invariant set S, possibly not isolated, in order to describe the dynamics in S. More specifically, we consider the action of the covering translation group in order to define a topological separation of S which distinguishes the connections between the Morse sets within a Morse decomposition of S. The theory developed herein generalizes the classical connection matrix theory, since one obtains enriched information on the connection maps for non-isolated invariant sets, as well as for isolated invariant sets. Moreover, in the case of an infinite cyclic covering induced by a circle-valued Morse function, one proves that the Novikov differential of f is a particular case of the p-connection matrix defined herein.

We propose a conjectural framework for computing Gorenstein measures and stringy Hodge numbers in terms of motivic integration over arcs of smooth Artin stacks, and we verify this framework in the case of fantastacks, which are certain toric Artin stacks that provide (nonseparated) resolutions of singularities for toric varieties. Specifically, let $\mathcal {X}$ be a smooth Artin stack admitting a good moduli space $\pi : \mathcal {X} \to X$, and assume that X is a variety with log-terminal singularities, $\pi $ induces an isomorphism over a nonempty open subset of X and the exceptional locus of $\pi $ has codimension at least $2$. We conjecture a change-of-variables formula relating the motivic measure for $\mathcal {X}$ to the Gorenstein measure for X and functions measuring the degree to which $\pi $ is nonseparated. We also conjecture that if the stabilisers of $\mathcal {X}$ are special groups in the sense of Serre, then almost all arcs of X lift to arcs of $\mathcal {X}$, and we explain how in this case (assuming a finiteness hypothesis satisfied by fantastacks) our conjectures imply a formula for the stringy Hodge numbers of X in terms of a certain motivic integral over the arcs of $\mathcal {X}$. We prove these conjectures in the case where $\mathcal {X}$ is a fantastack.

In this paper, we prove a decomposition result for the Chow groups of projectivizations of coherent sheaves of homological dimension $\le 1$. In this process, we establish the decomposition of Chow groups for the cases of the Cayley trick and standard flips. Moreover, we apply these results to study the Chow groups of symmetric powers of curves, nested Hilbert schemes of surfaces, and the varieties resolving Voisin maps for cubic fourfolds.

In this article, we prove a local implication of boundedness of Fano varieties. More precisely, we prove that $d$-dimensional $a$-log canonical singularities with standard coefficients, which admit an $\epsilon$-plt blow-up, have minimal log discrepancies belonging to a finite set which only depends on $d,\,a$ and $\epsilon$. This result gives a natural geometric stratification of the possible mld's in a fixed dimension by finite sets. As an application, we prove the ascending chain condition for minimal log discrepancies of exceptional singularities. We also introduce an invariant for klt singularities related to the total discrepancy of Kollár components.

For $G = \mathrm {GL}_2, \mathrm {SL}_2, \mathrm {PGL}_2$ we compute the intersection E-polynomials and the intersection Poincaré polynomials of the G-character variety of a compact Riemann surface C and of the moduli space of G-Higgs bundles on C of degree zero. We derive several results concerning the P=W conjectures for these singular moduli spaces.

We give a characterisation of Fano-type surfaces with large cyclic automorphisms. As an application, we give a characterisation of Kawamata log terminal $3$-fold singularities with large class groups of rank at least $2$.

We prove that there are finitely many families, up to isomorphism in codimension one, of elliptic Calabi–Yau manifolds $Y\rightarrow X$ with a rational section, provided that $\dim (Y)\leq 5$ and $Y$ is not of product type. As a consequence, we obtain that there are finitely many possibilities for the Hodge diamond of such manifolds. The result follows from log birational boundedness of Kawamata log terminal pairs $(X, \Delta )$ with $K_X+\Delta$ numerically trivial and not of product type, in dimension at most four.

The aim of this paper is to study all the natural first steps of the minimal model program for the moduli space of stable pointed curves. We prove that they admit a modular interpretation, and we study their geometric properties. As a particular case, we recover the first few Hassett–Keel log canonical models. As a by-product, we produce many birational morphisms from the moduli space of stable pointed curves to alternative modular projective compactifications of the moduli space of pointed curves.

Let X be a normal compact Kähler space with klt singularities and torsion canonical bundle. We show that X admits arbitrarily small deformations that are projective varieties if its locally trivial deformation space is smooth. We then prove that this unobstructedness assumption holds in at least three cases: if X has toroidal singularities, if X has finite quotient singularities and if the cohomology group ${\mathrm {H}^{2} \!\left ( X, {\mathscr {T}_{X}} \right )}$ vanishes.

In this article, we describe the embeddings of the Heisenberg group into the Cremona group.

An effective lower bound on the entropy of some explicit quadratic plane Cremona transformations is given. The motivation is that such transformations (Hénon maps, or Feistel ciphers) are used in symmetric key cryptography. Moreover, a hyperbolic plane Cremona transformation g is rigid, in the sense of [5], and under further explicit conditions some power of g is tight.

We prove that the number of MMP-series of a smooth projective threefold of positive Kodaira dimension and of Picard number equal to three is at most two.

A strong submeasure on a compact metric space X is a sub-linear and bounded operator on the space of continuous functions on X. A strong submeasure is positive if it is non-decreasing. By the Hahn–Banach theorem, a positive strong submeasure is the supremum of a non-empty collection of measures whose masses are uniformly bounded from above. There are many natural examples of continuous maps of the form $f:U\rightarrow X$, where X is a compact metric space and $U\subset X$ is an open-dense subset, where f cannot extend to a reasonable function on X. We can mention cases such as transcendental maps of $\mathbb {C}$, meromorphic maps on compact complex varieties, or continuous self-maps $f:U\rightarrow U$ of a dense open subset $U\subset X$ where X is a compact metric space. For the aforementioned mentioned the use of measures is not sufficient to establish the basic properties of ergodic theory, such as the existence of invariant measures or a reasonable definition of measure-theoretic entropy and topological entropy. In this paper we show that strong submeasures can be used to completely resolve the issue and establish these basic properties. In another paper we apply strong submeasures to the intersection of positive closed $(1,1)$ currents on compact Kähler manifolds.

In this paper, we prove that if a compact Kähler manifold X has a smooth Hermitian metric $\omega $ such that $(T_X,\omega )$ is uniformly RC-positive, then X is projective and rationally connected. Conversely, we show that, if a projective manifold X is rationally connected, then there exists a uniformly RC-positive complex Finsler metric on $T_X$.