We classify del Pezzo surfaces with quotient singularities and Picard rank one which admit a ℚ-Gorenstein smoothing. These surfaces arise as singular fibres of del Pezzo fibrations in the 3-fold minimal model program and also in moduli problems.

Given a normal variety Z, a p-form σ defined on the smooth locus of Z and a resolution of singularities , we study the problem of extending the pull-back π*(σ) over the π-exceptional set . For log canonical pairs and for certain values of p, we show that an extension always exists, possibly with logarithmic poles along E. As a corollary, it is shown that sheaves of reflexive differentials enjoy good pull-back properties. A natural generalization of the well-known Bogomolov–Sommese vanishing theorem to log canonical threefold pairs follows.

According to our previous results, the conjugacy class of the involution induced by the complex conjugation in the homology of a real non-singular cubic fourfold determines the fourfold up to projective equivalence and deformation. Here, we show how to eliminate the projective equivalence and obtain a pure deformation classification, that is, how to respond to the chirality problem: which cubics are not deformation equivalent to their image under a mirror reflection. We provide an arithmetical criterion of chirality, in terms of the eigen-sublattices of the complex conjugation involution in homology, and show how this criterion can be effectively applied taking as examples M-cubics (that is, those for which the real locus has the richest topology) and (M−1)-cubics (the next case with respect to complexity of the real locus). It happens that there is one chiral class of M-cubics and three chiral classes of (M−1)-cubics, in contrast to two achiral classes of M-cubics and three achiral classes of (M−1)-cubics.

We describe equations of the universal torsors over del Pezzo surfaces of degrees from 2 to 5 over an algebraically closed field in terms of the equations of the corresponding homogeneous space G/P. We also give a generalization for fields that are not algebraically closed.

We study the birational geometry of irreducible holomorphic symplectic varieties arising as varieties of lines of general cubic fourfolds containing a cubic scroll. We compute the ample and moving cones, and exhibit a birational automorphism of infinite order explaining the chamber decomposition of the moving cone.

In this paper we generalize the definitions of singularities of pairs and multiplier ideal sheaves to pairs on arbitrary normal varieties, without any assumption on the variety being ℚ-Gorenstein or the pair being log ℚ-Gorenstein. The main features of the theory extend to this setting in a natural way.

The theorem referred to in the title is a technical result that is needed for the classification of elliptic and K3 fibrations birational to Fano 3-fold hypersurfaces in weighted projective space. We present a complete proof of the curve exclusion theorem, which first appeared in the author's PhD thesis and has since been relied upon in solutions to many cases of the fibration classification problem. We give examples of these solutions and discuss them briefly.

In this paper we consider the dynamical system involved by the Ricci operator on the space of Kähler metrics of a Fano manifold. Nadel has defined an iteration scheme given by the Ricci operator and asked whether it has some non-trivial periodic points. First, we prove that no such periodic points can exist. We define the inverse of the Ricci operator and consider the dynamical behaviour of its iterates for a Fano Kähler–Einstein manifold. Then we define a finite-dimensional procedure to give an approximation of Kähler–Einstein metrics using this iterative procedure and apply it on ℂℙ2 blown up in three points.

Desingularized fiber products of semi-stable elliptic surfaces with Hetale3=0 are classified. Such varieties may play a role in the study of supersingular threefolds, of the deformation theory of varieties with trivial canonical bundle, and of arithmetic degenerations of rigid Calabi–Yau threefolds.

Let X be a smooth complex Fano variety. We study ‘quasi-elementary’ contractions of fiber type of X, which are a natural generalization of elementary contractions of fiber type. If f:X→Y is such a contraction, then the Picard numbers satisfy ρX≤ρY+ρF, where F is a general fiber of f. We show that, if dim Y ≤3 and ρY≥4, then Y is smooth and Fano; if moreover ρY≥6, then X is a product. This yields sharp bounds on ρX when dim X=4 and X has a quasi-elementary contraction of fiber type, and other applications in higher dimensions.

We give a presentation of the moduli stack of toric vector bundles with fixed equivariant total Chern class as a quotient of a fine moduli scheme of framed bundles by a linear group action. This fine moduli scheme is described explicitly as a locally closed subscheme of a product of partial flag varieties cut out by combinatorially specified rank conditions. We use this description to show that the moduli of rank three toric vector bundles satisfy Murphy’s law, in the sense of Vakil. The preliminary sections of the paper give a self-contained introduction to Klyachko’s classification of toric vector bundles.

Lattès and Kummer examples are rational transformations of compact kähler manifolds that are covered by an affine transformation of a compact torus. We present a few ergodic characteristic properties of these examples. The main results concern the case of surfaces.

We construct general type surfaces in mixed characteristic whose geometric genera can be made to jump by an arbitrarily prescribed positive amount under specialization. We then show that this phenomenon of jumping geometric genus presents itself in some compact Shimura surfaces. Finally, we find a set of conditions, met by the latter Shimura surfaces, that forces the higher plurigenera to remain constant in reduction modulo p.

We give the first examples over finite fields of rings of invariants that are not finitely generated. (The examples work over arbitrary fields, for example the rational numbers.) The group involved can be as small as three copies of the additive group. The failure of finite generation comes from certain elliptic fibrations or abelian surface fibrations having positive Mordell–Weil rank. Our work suggests a generalization of the Morrison–Kawamata cone conjecture on Calabi–Yau fiber spaces to klt Calabi–Yau pairs. We prove the conjecture in dimension two under the assumption that the anticanonical bundle is semi-ample.

We continue the study, begun in [F. Russo, Varieties with quadratic entry locus. I, Preprint (2006), math. AG/0701889] , of secant defective manifolds having ‘simple entry loci’. We prove that such manifolds are rational and describe them in terms of tangential projections. Using also the work of [P. Ionescu and F. Russo, Conic-connected manifolds, Preprint (2006), math. AG/0701885], their classification is reduced to the case of Fano manifolds of high index, whose Picard group is generated by the hyperplane section class. Conjecturally, the former should be linear sections of rational homogeneous manifolds. We also provide evidence that the classification of linearly normal dual defective manifolds with Picard group generated by the hyperplane section should follow along the same lines.

A K3 category is by definition a Calabi–Yau category of dimension two. Geometrically K3 categories occur as bounded derived categories of (twisted) coherent sheaves on K3 or abelian surfaces. A K3 category is generic if there are no spherical objects (or just one up to shift). We study stability conditions on K3 categories as introduced by Bridgeland and prove his conjecture about the topology of the stability manifold and the autoequivalences group for generic twisted projective K3, abelian surfaces, and K3 surfaces with trivial Picard group.

We introduce complex differential geometry twisted by a real line bundle. This provides a new approach to understand the various real objects that are associated with an anti-holomorphic involution. We also generalize a result of Greenleaf about real analytic sheaves from dimension 2 to higher dimensions.

Let X be a smooth projective surface with q(X) = 0 defined over R and M(X;r;c1;c2;H) the moduli space of H-stable rank r vector bundles on X with Chern classes c1 and c2. Assume either r = 3 and X(R) connected or r = 3 and X(R) =ø or r=2 and X(R) = ø. We prove that quite often M is connected.

Let x0, x1, x2, x3 be polynomials in a variable t and with coefficients in a field k of character of characteristic 0. If and , then x0 = x1 = x2 = x3 = 0. This partially answers a question of Pjatetskii-Š;apiro and Šafarevič about the K3-surface . The proof uses a technique of M. R. Christie.