Rationally cubic connected manifolds. I: Manifolds covered by lines (Q455013)

An algebraic variety is rationally connected if a general pair of points can be connected by a rational curve. Such varieties were first introduced in [\textit{F.~Campana}, Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 25, No. 5, 539--545 (1992; Zbl 0783.14022)] and [\textit{J.~Kollár, Y.~Miyaoka} and \textit{S.~Mori}, J. Algebr. Geom. 1, No. 3, 429--448 (1992; Zbl 0780.14026)]; they play an important role in the study of higher dimensional algebraic varieties. One way to study a rationally connected variety is to consider the minimal degree, with respect to some ample divisor, of rational curves connecting a general pair of points of the variety. The most useful tool in such studies is the ``bend-and-break'' techniques initiated by \textit{S.~Mori} in his famous work [Ann. Math. (2) 110, 593--606 (1979; Zbl 0423.24006)]. For example, the projective space is the only variety for which a general pair of points can be connected by a line. A classification of conic-connected varieties were obtained in [\textit{P.~Ionescu} and \textit{F.~Russo}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 644, 145--157 (2010; Zbl 1200.14078)]. The paper under review deals with rationally cubic connected (RCC) varieties, namely varieties for which a general pair of points can be connected by a cubic rational curve. The main result says that if an RCC variety \((X,H)\) is covered by lines, then the Picard number of \(X\) is at most \(3\). A structure theorem for the case when \(X\) has Picard number \(3\) is also obtained. The main idea of the proof is to degenerate a cubic curve into a chain of lines.