Arithmetic and Geometry Seminar: Abstract

Arithmetic and Geometry Seminar

Date: 04/27/01
Time: 2:30-4:00
Speaker: Christopher Hacon
Affiliation: UCR
Title: Effective criteria for birational morphisms
Abstract

One of the fundamental problems of algebraic geometry is to classify complex projective manifolds up to birational isomorphism. When possible this classification is usually achieved in terms of the numbers P_m(X) (known as the m-th plurigenera of X) which correspond the number of linearly independent (m-multiple-valued) top-degree holomorphic differential forms on the manifold X. If P_m(X) is of maximal growth, one says that X is of general type. A natural problem that arises in this context is to determine explicit conditions for a surjective morphism f:X--->Y of n-dimensional manifolds to be a birational isomorphism. We will discuss the connection between this problem and a famous conjecture of Fujita. When $Y$ is of general type and has big fundamental group, there is a surprisingly simple answer: Theorem: Let f:X--->Y be a surjective morphism of n-dimensional manifolds. If $Y$ is of general type and of generically large algebraic fundamental group, then $f$ is a birational isomorphism if and only if $P_2(X)=P_2(Y)$.