arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Ana-Maria Castravet.
We give a myriad of examples of extremal divisors, rigid curves, and birational morphisms with unexpected properties for the Grothendieck--Knudsen moduli space $\bar M_{0,n}$ of stable rational curves. The basic tool is an isomorphism between $M_{0,n}$ and the Brill--Noether locus of a very special reducible curve corresponding to a hypergraph.
Our main result is the description of generators of the total coordinate ring of the blow-up of $P^n$ in any number of points that lie on a rational normal curve. As a corollary we show that the algebra of invariants of the action of a two-dimensional vector group introduced by Nagata is finitely generated by certain explicit determinants. We also prove the finite generation of the algebras of invariants of actions of vector groups related to T-shaped Dynkin diagrams introduced by Mukai.
A conjecture of Pukhlikov states that a smooth Fano variety of dimension at least four and index one is birationally rigid. We show that a general member of the linear system given by the ample generator of the Picard group of the moduli space of stable, rank two bundles with fixed determinant of odd degree on a curve of genus at least three, is not birationally rigid.
Let C be a smooth complex projective curve of genus at least 2 and let M be the moduli space of rank 2, stable vector bundles on C, with fixed determinant of degree 1. For any k>1, we find two irreducible components of the space of rational curves of degree k on M. One component, which we call the nice component has the property that the general element is a very free curve if k is sufficiently large. The other component has the general element a free curve. Both components have the expected dimension and their maximal rationally connected fibration is the Jacobian of the curve C.
This is a continuation of "Rational families of vector bundles on curves, I". Let C be a smooth projective curve of genus at least 2 and let M be the moduli space of rank 2, stable vector bundles on C, with fixed determinant of degree 1. For any k>0, we find all the irreducible components of the space of rational curves of degree k on M and their maximal rationally connected quotients.