We show that if $X$ is a smooth complex projective variety with Kodaira dimension $0$ then the Kodaira dimension of a general fiber of its Albanese map is at most $h^0(Omega ^1 _X)$.
The Milnor conjecture has been a driving force in the theory of quadratic forms over fields, guiding the development of the theory of cohomological invariants, ushering in the theory of motivic cohomology, and touching on questions ranging from sums of squares to the structure of absolute Galois groups. Here, we survey some recent work on generalizations of the Milnor conjecture to the context of schemes (mostly smooth varieties over fields of characteristic not 2). Surprisingly, a version of the Milnor conjecture fails to hold for certain smooth complete p-adic curves with no rational theta characteristic (this is the work of Parimala, Scharlau, and Sridharan). We explain how these examples fit into the larger context of an unramified Milnor question, offer a new approach to the question, and discuss new results in the case of curves over local fields and surfaces over finite fields.
We give non-torsion counterexamples against the integral Tate conjecture for finite fields. We extend the result due to Pirutka and Yagita for prime numbers 2,3,5 to all prime numbers.
The Katz-Klemm-Vafa conjecture expresses the Gromov-Witten theory of K3 surfaces (and K3-fibred 3-folds in fibre classes) in terms of modular forms. Its recent proof gives the first non-toric geometry in dimension greater than 1 where Gromov-Witten theory is exactly solved in all genera. We survey the various steps in the proof. The MNOP correspondence and a new Pairs/Noether-Lefschetz correspondence for K3-fibred 3-folds transform the Gromov-Witten problem into a calculation of the full stable pairs theory of a local K3-fibred 3-fold. The stable pairs calculation is then carried out via degeneration, localisation, vanishing results, and new multiple cover formulae.
A conic bundle is a contraction $Xto Z$ between normal varieties of relative dimension $1$ such that $-K_X$ is relatively ample. We prove a conjecture of Shokurov which predicts that, if $Xto Z$ is a conic bundle such that $X$ has canonical singularities and $Z$ is $mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein, then $Z$ is always $frac{1}{2}$-lc, and the multiplicities of the fibers over codimension $1$ points are bounded from above by $2$. Both values $frac{1}{2}$ and $2$ are sharp. This is achieved by solving a more general conjecture of Shokurov on singularities of bases of lc-trivial fibrations of relative dimension $1$ with canonical singularities.