Degenerations of rational surfaces with trivial monodromy (Q1092131)

The purpose of this work is to show that a monoidally Kähler degeneration (i.e. one which can be made Kähler after smooth blow-ups and blow-downs) of a rational surface with trivial monodromy can be modified by smooth blow-ups and smooth blow-downs to a degeneration of the projective plane which dominates the trivial degeneration. The assumption on the monodromy can be always satisfied after a base change by a finite map. The proof of the main result consists of two steps. The first one shows that given a monoidally Kähler degeneration of a rational surface with trivial monodromy one can find a modification of the type as above which results in a degeneration of the projective plane with trivial monodromy. (The analog of this statement for degenerations of Enriques surfaces is proven as well. Those reduce to degenerations of minimal Enriques surfaces.) While the question if a degeneration of the projective plane with trivial monodromy always dominates the trivial degeneration is left open the author at the second step finds a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a degeneration of the projective plane to dominate the trivial degeneration. It is shown that after birational modifications these conditions can always be satisfied. Several illustrating examples are given.