Gosset Polytopes in Picard groups of del Pezzo Surfaces

In this article, we research on the correspondences between the geometry of del Pezzo surfaces S_{r} and the geometry of Gosset polytopes (r-4)_{21}. We construct Gosset polytopes (r-4)_{21} in Pic S_{r}; Q whose vertices are lines, and we identify divisor classes in Pic S_{r} corresponding to (a-1)-simplexes, (r-1)-simplexes and (r-1)-crosspolytopes of the polytope (r-4)_{21}. Then we explain these classes correspond to skew a-lines, exceptional systems and rulings, respectively. As an application, we work on the monoidal transform for lines to study the local geometry of the polytope (r-4)_{21}. And we show Gieser transformation and Bertini transformation induce a symmetry of polytopes 3_{21} and 4_{21}, respectively.Comment: 29 pages. Change the contents from the last versio

The electron temperature of the inner halo of the Planetary Nebula NGC 6543

We investigate the electron temperature of the inner halo and nebular core regions of NGC 6543, using archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) images taken through narrow band [O III] filters. Balick et al. (2001) showed that the inner halo consists of a number of spherical shells. We find the temperature of this inner halo to be much higher (~15000 K) than that of the bright core nebula (~8500 K). Photo-ionization models indicate that hardening of the UV radiation from the central star cannot be the main source of the higher temperature in the halo region. Using a radiation hydrodynamic simulation, we show that mass loss and velocity variations in the AGB wind can explain the observed shells, as well as the higher electron temperature.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to be published in A&

The Octonions

The octonions are the largest of the four normed division algebras. While somewhat neglected due to their nonassociativity, they stand at the crossroads of many interesting fields of mathematics. Here we describe them and their relation to Clifford algebras and spinors, Bott periodicity, projective and Lorentzian geometry, Jordan algebras, and the exceptional Lie groups. We also touch upon their applications in quantum logic, special relativity and supersymmetry.Comment: 56 pages LaTeX, 11 Postscript Figures, some small correction

Polytopes, quasi-minuscule representations and rational surfaces

summary:We describe the relation between quasi-minuscule representations, polytopes and Weyl group orbits in Picard lattices of rational surfaces. As an application, to each quasi-minuscule representation we attach a class of rational surfaces, and realize such a representation as an associated vector bundle of a principal bundle over these surfaces. Moreover, any quasi-minuscule representation can be defined by rational curves, or their disjoint unions in a rational surface, satisfying certain natural numerical conditions

K\"{a}hler-Einstein metrics on smooth Fano symmetric varieties with Picard number one

Symmetric varieties are normal equivarient open embeddings of symmetric homogeneous spaces, and they are interesting examples of spherical varieties. We prove that all smooth Fano symmetric varieties with Picard number one admit K\"{a}hler-Einstein metrics by using a combinatorial criterion for K-stability of Fano spherical varieties obtained by Delcroix. For this purpose, we present their algebraic moment polytopes and compute the barycenter of each moment polytope with respect to the Duistermaat-Heckman measure.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

K-stability of Gorenstein Fano group compactifications with rank two

We give a classification of Gorenstein Fano bi-equivariant compactifications of semisimple complex Lie groups with rank two, and determine which of them are equivariant K-stable and admit (singular) K\"{a}hler-Einstein metrics. As a consequence, we obtain several explicit examples of K-stable Fano varieties admitting (singular) K\"{a}hler-Einstein metrics. We also compute the greatest Ricci lower bounds, equivalently the delta invariants for K-unstable varieties. This gives us three new examples on which each solution of the K\"{a}hler-Ricci flow is of type II.Comment: 33 pages, 8 figure