On a family of negative curves (Q2001429)

Let \(X\) be a normal projective variety over an algebraically closed field \(k\) of characteristic zero. The Cox ring of \(X\) is defined as \(\bigoplus_{[D] \in \mathrm{Cl}(X)} H^0(X,{\mathcal O}_{X}(D))\), where \(\mathrm{Cl}(X)\) is the grup of Weil divisors of \(X\) modulo linear equivalence. The variety \(X\) is said to be a Mori Dream Space (MDS with the notation of the paper under review) if its Cox ring is a finitely generated \(k\)-algebra. It is known (see the Introduction and references therein) that if \(X\) is the blowup at a general point of a weighted projective space then it is a MDS if and only if \(X\) contains a negative curve \(C\) (irreducible with self intersection \(\leq 0\)) and a nonempty curve \(D\) disjoint from \(C\). The main result of the paper is the construction, for any integer \(m\geq 1\), of examples of MDS and non-MDS among varieties which are blowups at a general point of projective toric surfaces of Picard number one \(X_{\Delta}\), for which the previous characterization of being a MDS is shown to hold. Using the toric geometry of these varieties, all the produced examples contain a negative curve in the class of \(\pi^*H-mE\), where \(\pi:X \to X_{\Delta}\) is the projection, \(H\) is the class of a curve in \(X_{\Delta}\) and \(E\) is the exceptional divisor. Then one needs to find a curve \(D\) disjoint with the negative one, or to prove that it cannot exist in order to know if it is or not a MDS. This is done and the examples are collected in Theorem 1.2 (MDS) and Theorem 1.3 (non-MDS).