Universal families of arcs and curves on surfaces

The main goal of this paper is to investigate the minimal size of families of curves on surfaces with the following property: a family of simple closed curves $\Gamma$ on a surface realizes all types of pants decompositions if for any pants decomposition of the surface, there exists a homeomorphism sending it to a subset of the curves in $\Gamma$. The study of such universal families of curves is motivated by questions on graph embeddings, joint crossing numbers and finding an elusive center of moduli space. In the case of surfaces without punctures, we provide an exponential upper bound and a superlinear lower bound on the minimal size of a family of curves that realizes all types of pants decompositions. We also provide upper and lower bounds in the case of surfaces with punctures which we can consider labelled or unlabelled, and investigate a similar concept of universality for triangulations of polygons, where we provide bounds which are tight up to logarithmic factors.Comment: v2: Fixed a mistake in one of the lower bound

Minimal sections of conic bundles

Let the threefold X be a general smooth conic bundle over the projective plane P(2), and let (J(X), Theta) be the intermediate jacobian of X. In this paper we prove the existence of two natural families C(+) and C(-) of curves on X, such that the Abel-Jacobi map F sends one of these families onto a copy of the theta divisor (Theta), and the other -- onto the jacobian J(X). The general curve C of any of these two families is a section of the conic bundle projection, and our approach relates such C to a maximal subbundle of a rank 2 vector bundle E(C) on C, or -- to a minimal section of the ruled surface P(E(C)). The families C(+) and C(-) correspond to the two possible types of versal deformations of ruled surfaces over curves of fixed genus g(C). As an application, we find parameterizations of J(X) and (Theta) for certain classes of Fano threefolds, and study the sets Sing(Theta) of the singularities of (Theta).Comment: Duke preprint, 29 pages. LaTex 2.0

Surfaces of general type with pg=q=1,K2=8p_g=q=1, K^2=8 and bicanonical map of degree 2

We classify the minimal algebraic surfaces of general type with $p_g=q=1, K^2=8$ and bicanonical map of degree 2. It will turn out that they are isogenous to a product of curves, so that if $S$ is such a surface then there exist two smooth curves $C, F$ and a finite group $G$ acting freely on $C \times F$ such that $S = (C \times F)/G$. We describe the $C, F$ and $G$ that occur. In particular the curve $C$ is a hyperelliptic-bielliptic curve of genus 3, and the bicanonical map $\phi$ of $S$ is composed with the involution $\sigma$ induced on $S$ by $\tau \times id: C \times F \longrightarrow C \times F$, where $\tau$ is the hyperelliptic involution of $C$. In this way we obtain three families of surfaces with $p_g=q=1, K^2=8$ which yield the first known examples of surfaces with these invariants. We compute their dimension, and we show that they are three smooth and irreducible components of the moduli space $\mathcal{M}$ of surfaces with $p_g=q=1, K^2=8$. For each of these families, an alternative description as a double cover of the plane is also given, and the index of the paracanonical system is computed.Comment: 36 pages. To appear in Transactions of the American Mathematical Societ

Surfaces of Degree 10 in the Projective Fourspace via Linear Systems and Linkage

The paper discusses the classification of surfaces of degree 10 and sectional genus 9 and 10. The surfaces of degree at most 9 are described through classical work dating from the last century up to recent years, while surfaces of degree 10 and other sectional genera are studied elsewhere. We use relations between multisecants, linear systems, syzygies and linkage to describe the geometry of each surface. We want in fact to stress the importance of multisecants and syzygies for the study of these surfaces. Adjunction, which provided efficient arguments for the classification of surfaces of smaller degrees, here appears to be less effective and will play almost no role in the proofs. We show that there are 8 different families of smooth surfaces of degree 10 and sectional genus 9 and 10. The families are determined by numerical data such as the sectional genus, the Euler characteristic, the number of 6-secants to the surface and the number of 5-secants to the surface which meet a general plane. For each type we describe the linear system giving the embedding in P^4, the resolution of the ideal, the geometry of the surface in terms of curves on the surface and hypersurfaces containing the surface, and the liaison class; in particular we find minimal elements in the even liaison class. Each type corresponds to an irreducible, unirational component of the Hilbert scheme, and the dimension is computed.Comment: 52 pages, plain Te

Associative Submanifolds of the 7-Sphere

Associative submanifolds of the 7-sphere S^7 are 3-dimensional minimal submanifolds which are the links of calibrated 4-dimensional cones in R^8 called Cayley cones. Examples of associative 3-folds are thus given by the links of complex and special Lagrangian cones in C^4, as well as Lagrangian submanifolds of the nearly K\"ahler 6-sphere. By classifying the associative group orbits, we exhibit the first known explicit example of an associative 3-fold in S^7 which does not arise from other geometries. We then study associative 3-folds satisfying the curvature constraint known as Chen's equality, which is equivalent to a natural pointwise condition on the second fundamental form, and describe them using a new family of pseudoholomorphic curves in the Grassmannian of 2-planes in R^8 and isotropic minimal surfaces in S^6. We also prove that associative 3-folds which are ruled by geodesic circles, like minimal surfaces in space forms, admit families of local isometric deformations. Finally, we construct associative 3-folds satisfying Chen's equality which have an S^1-family of global isometric deformations using harmonic 2-spheres in S^6.Comment: 42 pages, v2: minor corrections, streamlined and improved exposition, published version; Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Advance Access published 17 June 201

Product-Quotient Surfaces: new invariants and algorithms

In this article we suggest a new approach to the systematic, computer-aided construction and to the classification of product-quotient surfaces, introducing a new invariant, the integer gamma, which depends only on the singularities of the quotient model X=(C_1 x C_2)/G. It turns out that gamma is related to the codimension of the subspace of H^{1,1} generated by algebraic curves coming from the construction (i.e., the classes of the two fibers and the Hirzebruch-Jung strings arising from the minimal resolution of singularities of X). Profiting from this new insight we developped and implemented an algorithm which constructs all regular product-quotient surfaces with given values of gamma and geometric genus in the computer algebra program MAGMA. Being far better than the previous algorithms, we are able to construct a substantial number of new regular product-quotient surfaces of geometric genus zero. We prove that only two of these are of general type, raising the number of known families of product-quotient surfaces of general type with genus zero to 75. This gives evidence to the conjecture that there is an effective bound of the form gamma < Gamma(p_g,q).Comment: 33 pages, 3 figure