The numerical class of a surface on a toric manifold

In this paper, we give a method to describe the numerical class of a torus invariant surface on a projective toric manifold. As applications, we can classify toric 2-Fano manifolds of Picard number 2 or of dimension at most 4.Comment: 10 page

Diffeomorphism classes of Calabi-Yau varieties

In this article we investigate diffeomorphism classes of Calabi-Yau threefolds. In particular, we focus on those embedded in toric Fano manifolds. Along the way, we give various examples and conclude with a curious remark regarding mirror symmetry.Comment: 10 pages; v2 minor changes: typos and exposition improved; to appear in Rendiconti del Seminario Matematic

Asymptotically cylindrical Calabi-Yau 3-folds from weak Fano 3-folds

We prove the existence of asymptotically cylindrical (ACyl) Calabi-Yau 3-folds starting with (almost) any deformation family of smooth weak Fano 3-folds. This allow us to exhibit hundreds of thousands of new ACyl Calabi-Yau 3-folds; previously only a few hundred ACyl Calabi-Yau 3-folds were known. We pay particular attention to a subclass of weak Fano 3-folds that we call semi-Fano 3-folds. Semi-Fano 3-folds satisfy stronger cohomology vanishing theorems and enjoy certain topological properties not satisfied by general weak Fano 3-folds, but are far more numerous than genuine Fano 3-folds. Also, unlike Fanos they often contain P^1s with normal bundle O(-1) + O(-1), giving rise to compact rigid holomorphic curves in the associated ACyl Calabi-Yau 3-folds. We introduce some general methods to compute the basic topological invariants of ACyl Calabi-Yau 3-folds constructed from semi-Fano 3-folds, and study a small number of representative examples in detail. Similar methods allow the computation of the topology in many other examples. All the features of the ACyl Calabi-Yau 3-folds studied here find application in arXiv:1207.4470 where we construct many new compact G_2-manifolds using Kovalev's twisted connected sum construction. ACyl Calabi-Yau 3-folds constructed from semi-Fano 3-folds are particularly well-adapted for this purpose.Comment: 107 pages, 1 figure. v3: minor corrections, changed formattin

Calculation of Nonperturbative Terms in Open String Models

Nonperturbative corrections in type II string theory corresponding to Riemann surfaces with one boundary are calculated in several noncompact geometries of desingularized orbifolds. One of these models has a complicated phase structure which is explored. A general condition for integrality of the numerical invariants is discussed

Rationality properties of manifolds containing quasi-lines

Let X be a complex, rationally connected, projective manifold. We show that X admits a modification X' that contains a quasi-line, ie a smooth rational curve whose normal bundle is a direct sum of copies of O_{P^1}(1). For manifolds containing quasi-lines, a sufficient condition of rationality is exploited: There is a unique quasi-line from a given family passing through two general points. We define a numerical birational invariant, e(X), and prove that X is rational if and only if e(X)=1. If X is rational, there is a modification X' which is strongly-rational We prove that strongly-rational varieties are stable under smooth, small deformations. Finally, we relate the previous results and formal geometry. This relies on \tilde{e}(X,Y), a numerical invariant of a given quasi-line Y that depends only on the formal completion of X along Y. As applications we show various instances in which X is determined by this formal completion. We also formulate a basic question about the birational invariance of \tilde{e}(X,Y).Comment: 25 page