A finiteness theorem for elliptic Calabi-Yau threefolds

Pathologies of the Hilbert scheme of points of a supersingular Enriques surface

The classical Beauville-Bogomolov Decomposition Theorem asserts that any compact Kähler manifold with numerically trivial canonical bundle admits an étale cover that decomposes into a product of a torus, and irreducible, simply-connected Calabi-Yau-- and holomorphic-symplectic manifolds. The decomposition of the simply-connected part corresponds to a decomposition of the tangent bundle into a direct sum whose summands are integrable and stable with respect to any polarisation. Building on recent extension theorems for differential forms on singular spaces, we prove an analogous decomposition theorem for the tangent sheaf of projective varieties with canonical singularities and numerically trivial canonical class. In view of recent progress in minimal model theory, this result can be seen as a first step towards a structure theory of manifolds with Kodaira dimension zero. Based on our main result, we argue that the natural building blocks for any structure theory are two classes of canonical varieties, which generalise the notions of irreducible Calabi-Yau-- and irreducible holomorphic-symplectic manifolds, respectively.

We prove that a geometrically integral smooth projective 3‐fold with nef anti‐canonical class and negative Kodaira dimension over a finite field of characteristic and cardinality has a rational point. Additionally, under the same assumptions on and , we show that a smooth projective 3‐fold with trivial canonical class and non‐zero first Betti number has a rational point. Our techniques rely on the Minimal Model Program to establish several structure results for generalized log Calabi–Yau 3‐fold pairs over perfect fields.

Given a reflexive sheaf on a mildly singular projective variety, we prove a flatness criterion under certain stability conditions. This implies the algebraicity of leaves for sufficiently stable foliations with numerically trivial canonical bundle such that the second Chern class does not vanish. Combined with the recent works of Druel and Greb–Guenancia–Kebekus this establishes the Beauville–Bogomolov decomposition for minimal models with trivial canonical class.

We find that for many Calabi-Yau threefolds with elliptic or genus one fibrations mirror symmetry factorizes between the fiber and the base of the fibration. In the simplest examples, the generic CY elliptic fibration over any toric base surface B that supports an elliptic Calabi-Yau threefold has a mirror that is an elliptic fibration over a dual toric base surface tilde{B} that is related through toric geometry to the line bundle −6KB. The Kreuzer-Skarke database includes all these examples and gives a wide range of other more complicated constructions where mirror symmetry also factorizes. Since recent evidence suggests that most Calabi-Yau threefolds are elliptic or genus one fibered, this points to a new way of understanding mirror symmetry that may apply to a large fraction of smooth Calabi-Yau threefolds. The factorization structure identified here can also apply for CalabiYau manifolds of higher dimension.

We study positivity properties of the moduli (b-)divisor associated to a relative log pair (X, B)/Y with relatively trivial log canonical class.

Calabi–Yau threefolds obtained as fiber products of elliptic and quasi-elliptic rational surfaces

In this paper we discuss four methods of proving of Calabi--Yau threefolds with $h^{12}=1$: existence of elliptic ruled surfaces inside (Hulek-Verrill), correspondence with a product of an elliptic curve and a K3 surface (Livn\'e-Yui), correspondence with a (modular) rigid Calabi-Yau threefold, and existence of an involution splitting the fourdimensional representation into twodimensional subrepresentations. We apply these methods to prove of 17 out of 18 double octic Calabi-Yau threefolds for which numerical evidence of modularity was found in the second Author's thesis. We observe that holds for those elements in a pencil having some additional geometric properties. In the proofs we use representations of the considered Calabi-Yau threefolds as a Kummer fibration associated to a fiber product of rational elliptic fibrations.

We study F-theory compactifications with U(1)xU(1) gauge symmetry on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds with a rank two Mordell-Weil group. We find that the natural presentation of an elliptic curve E with two rational points and a zero point is the generic Calabi-Yau onefold in dP_2. We determine the birational map to its Tate and Weierstrass form and the coordinates of the two rational points in Weierstrass form. We discuss its resolved elliptic fibrations over a general base B and classify them in the case of B=P^2. A thorough analysis of the generic codimension two singularities of these elliptic Calabi-Yau manifolds is presented. This determines the general U(1)xU(1)-charges of matter in corresponding F-theory compactifications. The matter multiplicities for the fibration over P^2 are determined explicitly and shown to be consistent with anomaly cancellation. Explicit toric examples are constructed, both with U(1)xU(1) and SU(5)xU(1)xU(1) gauge symmetry. As a by-product, we prove the birational equivalence of the two elliptic fibrations with elliptic fibers in the two blow-ups Bl_(1,0,0)P^2(1,2,3) and Bl_(0,1,0)P^2(1,1,2) employing birational maps and extremal transitions.

We find through a systematic analysis that all but 29,223 of the 473.8 million 4D reflexive polytopes found by Kreuzer and Skarke have a 2D reflexive subpolytope. Such a subpolytope is generally associated with the presence of an elliptic or genus one fibration in the corresponding birational equivalence class of Calabi-Yau threefolds. This extends the growing body of evidence that most Calabi-Yau threefolds have an elliptically fibered phase.

The four-form field strength in F-theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau fourfolds takes its value in the middle cohomology group $H^4$. The middle cohomology is decomposed into a vertical, a horizontal and a remaining component, all three of which are present in general. We argue that a flux along the remaining or vertical component may break some symmetry, while a purely horizontal flux does not influence the unbroken part of the gauge group or the net chirality of charged matter fields. This makes the decomposition crucial to the counting of flux vacua in the context of F-theory GUTs. We use mirror symmetry to derive a combinatorial formula for the dimensions of these components applicable to any toric Calabi--Yau hypersurface, and also make a partial attempt at providing a geometric characterization of the four-cycles Poincar\'e dual to the remaining component of $H^4$. It is also found in general elliptic Calabi-Yau fourfolds supporting SU(5) gauge symmetry that a remaining component can be present, for example, in a form crucial to the symmetry breaking ${\rm SU}(5) \longrightarrow {\rm SU}(3)_C \times {\rm SU}(2)_L \times {\rm U}(1)_Y$. The dimension of the horizontal component is used to derive an estimate of the statistical distribution of the number of generations and the rank of 7-brane gauge groups in the landscape of F-theory flux vacua.

Calabi-Yau threefolds with infinitely many flops to isomorphic manifolds have an extended Kähler cone made up from an infinite number of individual Kähler cones. These cones are related by reflection symmetries across flop walls. We study the implications of this cone structure for mirror symmetry, by considering the instanton part of the prepotential in Calabi-Yau threefolds. We show that such isomorphic flops across facets of the Kähler cone boundary give rise to symmetry groups isomorphic to Coxeter groups. In the dual Mori cone, non-flopping curve classes that are identified under these groups have the same Gopakumar-Vafa invariants. This leads to instanton prepotentials invariant under Coxeter groups, which we make manifest by introducing appropriate invariant functions. For some cases, these functions can be expressed in terms of theta functions whose appearance can be linked to an elliptic fibration structure of the Calabi-Yau manifold.

We compare the sets of Calabi-Yau threefolds with large Hodge numbers that are constructed using toric hypersurface methods with those can be constructed as elliptic fibrations using Weierstrass model techniques motivated by F-theory. There is a close correspondence between the structure of “tops” in the toric polytope construction and Tate form tunings of Weierstrass models for elliptic fibrations. We find that all of the Hodge number pairs (h1,1, h2,1) with h1,1 or h2,1 ≥ 240 that are associated with threefolds in the Kreuzer-Skarke database can be realized explicitly by generic or tuned Weierstrass/Tate models for elliptic fibrations over complex base surfaces. This includes a relatively small number of somewhat exotic constructions, including elliptic fibrations over non-toric bases, models with new Tate tunings that can give rise to exotic matter in the 6D F-theory picture, tunings of gauge groups over non-toric curves, tunings with very large Hodge number shifts and associated nonabelian gauge groups, and tuned Mordell-Weil sections associated with U(1) factors in the corresponding 6D theory.

We investigate the mathematical properties of the class of Calabi-Yau four-folds recently found in [arXiv:1303.1832]. This class consists of 921,497 configuration matrices which correspond to manifolds that are described as complete intersections in products of projective spaces. For each manifold in the list, we compute the full Hodge diamond as well as additional topological invariants such as Chern classes and intersection numbers. Using this data, we conclude that there are at least 36,779 topologically distinct manifolds in our list. We also study the fibration structure of these manifolds and find that 99.95 percent can be described as elliptic fibrations. In total, we find 50,114,908 elliptic fibrations, demonstrating the multitude of ways in which many manifolds are fibered. A sub-class of 26,088,498 fibrations satisfy necessary conditions for admitting sections. The complete data set can be downloaded at http://www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/projects/CalabiYau/Cicy4folds/index.html .

We give a criterion for a nef divisor D to be semi-ample on a Calabi-Yau threefold X when D^3=0=c_2(X)\cdot D and c_3(X)\neq 0 . As a direct consequence, we show that on such a variety X , if D is strictly nef and \nu(D)\neq 1 , then D is ample; we also show that if there exists a Cariter divisor D\not\equiv 0 in the boundary of the nef cone of X , then X contains a rational curve when its topological Euler characteristic is not 0 .