An unbounded family of log Calabi-Yau pairs (Q2408735)

A log Calabi-Yau pair \((Y,D)\) consists of a proper variety \(Y\) and an effective \(\mathbb Q\)-divisor \(D\) such that \((Y,D)\) is log canonical and \(K_Y+D\) is \(\mathbb Q\)-linearly equivalent to zero. General pairs of this type interpolate between Calabi-Yau varieties (take \(D = 0\)) and Fano varieties with \(D\) \(\mathbb Q\)-linearly equivalent to \(-K_Y\), provided that \((Y,D)\) is log canonical. Since there exist finitely many deformation types of Fano threefolds and, conjecturally, this should be true for Calabi-Yau threefolds too, it is natural to wonder whether a finiteness result has to be expected also for log Calabi-Yau threefolds. In particular, finiteness would imply that the Euler characteristics of these \(Y\) can take only finitely many possible values. Contrary to the expectation, the authors provide an explicit example of log Calabi-Yau pairs \((Y,D)\) with \(\dim Y = 3\) such that for every integer \(n \gg 0\) the Euler characteristic of \(Y\) is \(e(Y)=-48n-46\); moreover, \(Y\) is smooth and of negative Kodaira dimension, \(K_Y+D = 0\), and \(D\) is a K3 surface. The threefold \(Y\) is constructed via a double covering of a sequence of blow-ups of \(\mathbb P^1\)-bundles over the Segre-Hirzebruch surfaces \(\mathbb F_n\).