Fundamental groups of rationally connected varieties. (Q5954567)

The notion of a rationally connected variety was introduced by the author, \textit{Y. Miyaoka} and \textit{S. Mori} [J. Algebr. Geom. 1, 429--448 (1992; Zbl 0780.14026)] and says that any two points of a proper variety \(X\) over a field of characteristic \(0\) are in the image of an appropriate morphism \(f:\mathbb{P}^1\to X\). By a result of \textit{J.-P. Serre} [J. Lond. Math. Soc. 34, 481--484 (1959; Zbl 0097.36301)], it turns out that rationally connected varieties are simply connected. In the paper under review, the author investigates the more sophisticated problem of the fundamental groups of open subsets in a rationally connected variety. The main result is the following Theorem. Let \(X\) be a smooth projective rationally connected variety \(X\) over an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(0\), let \(U\subset X\) be an open subset, and let \(x_0\in U\) be a point. Then there is an open subset \(0\in V\subset {\mathbb{A}}^1\) and a morphism \(f: V\to U\) such that \(f(0)=x_0\), and \(\pi_1(V,0)\to\pi_1(U,x_0)\) is surjective. Several applications to \(p\)-adic fields and the image of the monodromy representations for the moduli space of genus \(g\) curves (which is known to be unirational for \(2\leq g \leq 13\)) are given.