Birational geometry of algebraic varieties with a pencil of Fano complete intersections (Q858595)

The paper under review deals with the birational geometry of algebraic complex varieties fibered into Fano complete intersections of index one over \(\mathbb P^1\), in particular with the problem of superrigidity of these varieties. Let \(X\) be a smooth uniruled variety; for any effective divisor \(D\) the linear system \(| nK_X+D| \) is empty for \(n >>0\), since \(X\) is covered by rational curves on which \(K_X\) is negative. We can therefore define \[ c(D,X)=\sup \{\varepsilon \in \mathbb Q^+~| ~D + \varepsilon K_X \in A^1_+X\}, \] where \(A^1_+X\) is the cone of pseudoeffective classes. If \(\Sigma\) is a non empty linear system we define \(c(\Sigma,X)\) to be \(c(D,X)\) for an arbitrary divisor \(D\) in \(\Sigma\). Finally, for a movable linear system \(\Sigma\) we define \(c_{virt}(\Sigma)\) as the inf of \(c(\Sigma',X')\), over the birational morphisms \(X' \to X\), \(X'\) a smooth projective model of \(\mathbb C(X)\), and \(\Sigma'\) the strict transform of \(\Sigma\). The variety is called birationally superrigid if for every movable linear system \(\Sigma\) we have \(c_{virt}(\Sigma)=c(\Sigma, X)\). Birational superrigidity of Fano complete intersection of index one was proved by the author [J. Reine Angew. Math. 541, 55--79 (2001; Zbl 1037.14004)]; in the present paper the author proves a sufficient condition for birational superrigidity for Fano fiber spaces \(V/\mathbb P^1\), and then he applies this result to prove the superrigidity of a generic Fano fiber space \(V/\mathbb P^1\) in case the fibers are Fano complete intersections of index one and dimension \(M\) in \(\mathbb P^{M+k}\), with \(M \geq 2k+1\). The main ingredients of the proof are the method of maximal singularities, the technique of hypertangent divisors and the connectedness principle of Shokurov and Kollár.