Affine cones over Fano threefolds and additive group actions (Q479205)

A projective variety is \textit{cylindrical} if it contains a Zariski open subset \(Z\times \mathbb{C}^1\), where \(Z\) is a quasiprojective variety. The existence of cylinders in projective varieties is closely related to the existence of effective \(\mathbb{G}_a\)-actions on affine cones over them [\textit{T. Kishimoto} et al., Transform. Groups 18, No. 4, 1137--1153 (2013; Zbl 1297.14061)]. The authors study when a smooth complex Fano threefold \(X\) of Picard number one is cylindrical. They provide new examples. Recall that the \textit{Fano scheme} of \(X\) is the component of the Hilbert scheme parameterizing lines on \(X\). Theorem 0.1 says that if the genus of \(X\) is \(9\) or \(10\), \(\text{Pic}(X)=\mathbb{Z}(-K_X)\) and the Fano scheme of \(X\) is non-smooth then \(X\) is cylindrical. Such threefolds do exist (see Theorem 2.6). As a consequence, any affine cone over \(X\) admits a non-linear \(\mathbb{G}_a\)-action, and hence has an infinite dimensional automorphism group. The authors do not know any example of a non-cylindrical rational Fano threefold, but they guess that a threefold corresponding to a general point of the moduli space of Fano threefolds of genus \(g=9\) or \(10\) with Picard number one should have this property.