Boundedness questions for Calabi-Yau threefolds

Abstract

In this paper, we study boundedness questions for (simply-connected) smooth Calabi-Yau threefolds. The diffeomorphism class of such a threefold is known to be determined up to finitely many possibilities by the integral middle cohomology and two integral forms on the integral second cohomology, namely the cubic cup-product form and the linear form given by cup-product with the second Chern class. The motivating question for this paper is whether knowledge of these cubic and linear forms determines the threefold up to finitely many families, that is the moduli of such threefolds is bounded. If this is true, then in particular the middle integral cohomology would be bounded by knowledge of these two forms on the second cohomology. Crucial to this question is the study of rigid rational surfaces on the threefold, which are the irreducible surfaces for which no multiple moves and which do not disappear under a general deformation of the complex structure of the threefold. If for instance there are no such surfaces, then the answer to the motivating question is yes (Theorem 0.1). In particular, for given cubic and linear forms on the second cohomology, there must exist such surfaces for large enough third Betti number (Corollary 0.2). The paper starts by proving general results on these rigid rational surfaces and boundedness of the family of threefolds. The basic principle is that if the cohomology classes of these surfaces are also known, then boundedness should hold (Theorem 4.5). The second half of the paper restricts to the case of Picard number 2, where it is shown that knowledge of the cubic and linear forms does indeed bound the family of Calabi-Yau threefolds (Theorem 0.3). As far as the author is aware, this is the first non-trivial case where a general boundedness result for Calabi-Yau threefolds has been proved (without the assumption of a special structure).