A note on degenerations of del Pezzo surfaces (Q748362)

The paper under review deals with singular del Pezzo surfaces \(X\) that admit a smoothing, that is, that can appear as central fibre in a family over the unit disk \(\pi:\mathcal{X}\rightarrow\Delta\) where \(\pi^{-1}0=X\) and \(\pi^{-1}t\) is smooth for any \(t\neq 0\). More precisely, the author studies del Pezzo surfaces with only quotient singularities that admit a \(\mathbb{Q}\)-Gorenstein smoothing. Thanks to \textit{J. Kollár} and \textit{N. I. Shepherd-Barron} [Invent. Math. 91, No. 2, 299--338 (1988; Zbl 0642.14008)], the singularities of such an \(X\) are either Du Val or cyclic quotient singularities. The main result is a bound on the number \(s(X)\) of non Du Val points: \(s(X)\leq \rho(X)+2\) and if \(s(X)= \rho(X)+2\) then \(X\) is toric, if \(s(X)= \rho(X)+1\) then \(X\) admits a \(\mathbb{C}^{\ast}\) action. The case \(\rho(X)=1\) has been worked out in [\textit{P. Hacking} and \textit{Y. Prokhorov}, Compos. Math. 146, No. 1, 169--192 (2010; Zbl 1194.14054)] and the case \(\pi^{-1}t\cong\mathbb{P}^2\) is the object of \textit{M. Manetti} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 419, 89--118 (1991; Zbl 0719.14023)]. The proof relies on a thorough description of the birational morphisms that appear in a \(K\)-MMP for a suitable pair.