Cohomological rigidity for toric Fano manifolds of small dimensions or large Picard numbers (Q2119665)

A convex integral \(d\)-dimensional polytope is said to be smooth Fano if it contains the origin in its interior and the vertices of each facet form an integral basis of \({\mathbb Z}^d\). A toric Fano \(d\)-fold is the toric variety generated by a smooth Fano \(d\)-polytope. From the general theory of toric varieties, two toric Fano \(d\)-folds are isomorphic if and only if their underlying polytopes are unimodularly equivalent. However, it is possible for non-isomorphic \(d\)-folds to be diffeomorphic as manifolds. Now the cohomology ring of a toric manifold is well-known and can be computed from the combinatorics of the underlying polytope. Using the database for smooth Fano polytopes compiled by Mikkel Øbro, the authors of the article show that for certain \(d\)-folds, cohomology can be used to distinguish between diffeomorphism classes. Specifically, it is shown that for the collection of toric Fano \(d\)-folds such that either (1) the associated polytope has at least \(3d-2\) vertices, (2) \(d=3\), or (3) \(d=4\) but excluding database ID numbers \(50\) and \(57\), \(d\)-folds are diffeomorphic if and only if their integral cohomology rings are isomorphic. Moreover for two \(d\)-folds in this collection, if there is an isomorphism between the two that preserves the first Chern class, then they are isomorphic as varieties.