The Sarkisov program for Mori fibred Calabi-Yau pairs

We prove a version of the Sarkisov program for volume preserving birational maps of Mori fibred Calabi-Yau pairs valid in all dimensions. Our theorem generalises the theorem of Usnich and Blanc on factorisations of birational maps of the 2-dimensional torus that preserve the canonical volume form.

Relations in the Sarkisov Program

The Sarkisov Program studies birational maps between varieties that are end products of the Minimal Model Program (MMP) on nonsingular uniruled varieties. If X and Y are terminal Q-factorial projective varieties endowed with a structure of Mori fibre space, any birational map between them can be decomposed into a finite number of elementary Sarkisov links. This decomposition is not unique in general, and any two distinct decompositions define a relation in the Sarkisov Program. This paper shows that relations in the Sarkisov Program are generated by some elementary relations. Roughly speaking, elementary relations are the relations among the end products of the MMP of Z over W, for suitable Z and W with relative Picard rank 3.

The defect of Fano 3-folds

This paper studies the defect of terminal Gorenstein Fano 3 folds. I determine a bound on the defect of terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-folds of Picard rank 1 that do not contain a plane. I give a general bound for quartic 3-folds and indicate how to study the defect of terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-folds with Picard rank 1 that contain a plane.

A classification of terminal quartic 3-folds and applications to rationality questions

This paper studies the birational geometry of terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-folds. If Y is not Q-factorial, in most cases, it is possible to describe explicitly the divisor class group Cl Y by running a Minimal Model Program (MMP) on X, a small Q-factorialisation of Y. In this case, Weil non-Cartier divisors are generated by topological traces of K-negative extremal contractions on X. One can show, as an application of these methods, that a number of families of non-factorial terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-folds are rational. In particular, I give some examples of rational quartic hypersurfaces with Cl Y of rank 2, and show that when Cl Y has rank greater than 6, Y is always rational.

The topology of terminal quartic 3-folds

In this thesis, I determine a bound on the defect of terminal Gorenstein quartic 3-folds. More generally, I study the defect of terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-folds of Picard rank 1 and genus at least 3. I state a geometric motivation of non Q-factoriality in the case of quartics.