Contractible classes in toric varieties (Q1566414)

If \(X\) is a smooth complete toric variety then the primitive classes in the extremal rays generate NE\((X)\) over \({\mathbb Q}_{\geq 0}\). This paper describes a generating set over \({\mathbb N}\), i.e. semigroup generators for NE\((X)\cap A_1(X)\). These are the contractible classes of the title: \(\gamma\in\text{NE}(X)\cap A_1(X)\) is said to be contractible if it is primitive, some irreducible curve in \(X\) has numerical class in \({\mathbb Q}_{\geq 0}\gamma\), and there exists a toric variety \(X_\gamma\) and an equivariant morphism \(\phi_\gamma\colon X\to X_\gamma\) with connected fibres, such that an irreducible curve \(C\subset X\) is contracted by \(\phi_\gamma\) if and only if \([C]\in{\mathbb Q}_{\geq 0}\gamma\). Contractible classes can be characterised in terms of the fan. A more geometric characterisation, proved here, is that \(\gamma\) is contractible if and only if every irreducible invariant curve \(C\) in \({\mathbb Q}_{\geq 0}\gamma\) is extremal in every irreducible invariant surface that contains it. For \(X\) projective, \(\gamma\) is extremal if and only if \(\gamma\) is contractible and \(X_\gamma\) is projective. Another characterisation of contractible is that \(\gamma\) is contractible if and only if it is extremal in the intersection of all irreducible invariant divisors \(D\) such that \(D.\gamma<0\). The main theorem is that if \(X\) is projective then the contractible classes generate NE\((X)\cap A_1(X)\) as a semigroup. In general this is false for non-projective \(X\), as an example here shows. A nice consequence is that if \(X\) is a projective toric variety and \(L\) is an ample line bundle then every curve on which \(L\) has minimal degree is extremal. There is also a description of the behaviour of contractible classes under blow-up and blow-down. As the author points out, her results are specifically toric and the situation in general is very different.