The Severi problem for rational curves on del Pezzo surfaces

Let X be a smooth projective surface and choose a curve C on X. Let VC be the set of all irreducible divisors on X linearly equivalent to C whose normalization is a rational curve. The Severi problem for rational curves on X with divisor class [C] consists of studying the irreducibility of the spaces VC as C varies among all curves on X. In this thesis, we prove that all the spaces VC are irreducible in the case where X is a del Pezzo surface of degree at least two. If the degree of X is one, then we prove the same result only for a general X, with the exception of V-KX, where KX is the canonical divisor of X. It is well known that for general del Pezzo surface of degree one, V-KX consists of twelve points, and thus cannot be irreducible.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mathematics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Testa, Damiano

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Aise Johan de Jong.

• Mathematics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/30356

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/30356