Fano 4-folds with a small contraction (Q2155188)

Smooth complex Fano varieties are classified up to dimension \(3\). In the \(4\)-dimensional case, the known examples are either products of Del Pezzo surfaces or \(4\)-folds whose Picard number \(\rho\) is less than or equal to \(9\). Moreover, there is just one known family whose Picard number is \(9\) (see the Intoduction of the paper under review and references therein). It is the main goal of this paper to study Fano \(4\)-folds \(X\), focusing on their birational geometry. It was known that if \(X\) has an elementary contraction of fiber type, then \(\rho \le 11\), and that if it has an elementary divisorial contraction sending a divisor to a point or a surface, then \(\rho \leq 5\). The main results of this paper (see Thm. 1.1 and Cor. 1.2) complement these statements in the case of small contractions. To be precise: the Picard number of a smooth Fano \(4\)-fold having an elementary small contraction is \(\le 12\). This, together with the known quoted results, concludes that every elementary contraction of a smooth Fano \(4\)-fold of Picard number \(\geq 13\) is divisorial and sends the exceptional divisor to a surface (which is or course the case when \(X\) is a product of Del Pezzo surfaces). The proof relies, on one hand, on the study of the families of lines (rational curves of anticanonical degree equal to 1) on \(X\), and divisors \(D\) covered by such lines. These divisors are, when \(\rho \geq 7\), either nef or fixed (\(D\) is the stable base locus of the complete linear system \(|D|\)) of some particular type. On the other hand, the proof needs the study of the faces of the effective cone of \(X\) and a careful analysis of its rational contractions of fiber type.