In this paper, we study compactifications of the moduli of smooth del Pezzo surfaces using K-stability and the line arrangement. We construct K-moduli of log del Pezzo pairs with sum of lines as boundary divisors, and prove that for $d=2,3,4$, these K-moduli of pairs are isomorphic to the K-moduli spaces of del Pezzo surfaces. For $d=1$, we prove that they are different by exhibiting some walls.

Let $(S,L)$ be a general polarised Enriques surface, with L not numerically 2-divisible. We prove the existence of regular components of all Severi varieties of irreducible nodal curves in the linear system $|L|$ , that is, for any number of nodes $\delta =0, \ldots , p_a(L)-1$ . This solves a classical open problem and gives a positive answer to a recent conjecture of Pandharipande–Schmitt, under the additional condition of non-2-divisibility.

We introduce the notion of a simple fibration in $(1,2)$ -surfaces – that is, a hypersurface inside a certain weighted projective space bundle over a curve such that the general fibre is a minimal surface of general type with $p_g=2$ and $K^2=1$ . We prove that almost all Gorenstein simple fibrations over the projective line with at worst canonical singularities are canonical threefolds ‘on the Noether line’ with $K^3=\frac 43 p_g-\frac {10}3$ , and we classify them. Among them, we find all the canonical threefolds on the Noether line that have previously appeared in the literature.

The Gorenstein simple fibrations over ${\mathbb {P}}^1$ are Cartier divisors in a toric $4$ -fold. This allows to us to show, among other things, that the previously known canonical threefolds on the Noether line form an open subset of the moduli space of canonical threefolds, that the general element of this component is a Mori Dream Space and that there is a second component when the geometric genus is congruent to $6$ modulo $8$ ; the threefolds in this component are new.

Let V be a smooth quasi-projective complex surface such that the first three logarithmic plurigenera $\overline P_1(V)$ , $\overline P_2(V)$ and $\overline P_3(V)$ are equal to 1 and the logarithmic irregularity $\overline q(V)$ is equal to $2$ . We prove that the quasi-Albanese morphism $a_V\colon V\to A(V)$ is birational and there exists a finite set S such that $a_V$ is proper over $A(V)\setminus S$ , thus giving a sharp effective version of a classical result of Iitaka [12].

Let $\pi \colon \mathcal {X}\to B$ be a family whose general fibre $X_b$ is a $(d_1,\,\ldots,\,d_a)$-polarization on a general abelian variety, where $1\leq d_i\leq 2$, $i=1,\,\ldots,\,a$ and $a\geq 4$. We show that the fibres are in the same birational class if all the $(m,\,0)$-forms on $X_b$ are liftable to $(m,\,0)$-forms on $\mathcal {X}$, where $m=1$ and $m=a-1$. Actually, we show a general criteria to establish whether the fibres of certain families belong to the same birational class.

Let $f: X \to B$ be a relatively minimal fibration of maximal Albanese dimension from a variety X of dimension $n \ge 2$ to a curve B defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. We prove that $K_{X/B}^n \ge 2n! \chi _f$ . It verifies a conjectural formulation of Barja in [2]. Via the strategy outlined in [4], it also leads to a new proof of the Severi inequality for varieties of maximal Albanese dimension. Moreover, when the equality holds and $\chi _f> 0$ , we prove that the general fibre F of f has to satisfy the Severi equality that $K_F^{n-1} = 2(n-1)! \chi (F, \omega _F)$ . We also prove some sharper results of the same type under extra assumptions.

We build on the recent techniques of Codogni and Patakfalvi (2021, Inventiones Mathematicae 223, 811–894), which were used to establish theorems about semi-positivity of the Chow Mumford line bundles for families of $\mathrm {K}$ -semistable Fano varieties. Here, we apply the Central Limit Theorem to ascertain the asymptotic probabilistic nature of the vertices of the Harder and Narasimhan polygons. As an application of our main result, we use it to establish a filtered vector space analogue of the main technical result of Codogni and Patakfalvi (2021, Inventiones Mathematicae 223, 811–894). In doing so, we expand upon the slope stability theory, for filtered vector spaces, that was initiated by Faltings and Wüstholz (1994, Inventiones Mathematicae 116, 109–138). One source of inspiration for our abstract study of Harder and Narasimhan data, which is a concept that we define here, is the lattice reduction methods of Grayson (1984, Commentarii Mathematici Helvetic 59, 600–634). Another is the work of Faltings and Wüstholz (1994, Inventiones Mathematicae 116, 109–138), and Evertse and Ferretti (2013, Annals of Mathematics 177, 513–590), which is within the context of Diophantine approximation for projective varieties.

The main goal of this paper is to construct a compactification of the moduli space of degree $d \geqslant 5$ surfaces in $\mathbb {P}^{3}_{{{\mathbb {C}}}}$, i.e. a parameter space whose interior points correspond to (equivalence classes of) smooth surfaces in $\mathbb {P}^{3}$ and whose boundary points correspond to degenerations of such surfaces. We consider a divisor $D$ on a Fano variety $Z$ as a pair $(Z, D)$ satisfying certain properties. We find a modular compactification of such pairs and, in the case of $Z = {{\mathbb {P}}}^{3}$ and $D$ a surface, use their properties to classify the pairs on the boundary of the moduli space.

We show that the K-moduli spaces of log Fano pairs $\left(\mathbb {P}^1\times \mathbb {P}^1, cC\right)$ , where C is a $(4,4)$ curve and their wall crossings coincide with the VGIT quotients of $(2,4)$ , complete intersection curves in $\mathbb {P}^3$ . This, together with recent results by Laza and O’Grady, implies that these K-moduli spaces form a natural interpolation between the GIT moduli space of $(4,4)$ curves on $\mathbb {P}^1\times \mathbb {P}^1$ and the Baily–Borel compactification of moduli of quartic hyperelliptic K3 surfaces.

We prove that there are finitely many families, up to isomorphism in codimension one, of elliptic Calabi–Yau manifolds $Y\rightarrow X$ with a rational section, provided that $\dim (Y)\leq 5$ and $Y$ is not of product type. As a consequence, we obtain that there are finitely many possibilities for the Hodge diamond of such manifolds. The result follows from log birational boundedness of Kawamata log terminal pairs $(X, \Delta )$ with $K_X+\Delta$ numerically trivial and not of product type, in dimension at most four.

We describe a compactification by KSBA stable pairs of the five-dimensional moduli space of K3 surfaces with a purely non-symplectic automorphism of order four and $U(2)\oplus D_4^{\oplus 2}$ lattice polarization. These K3 surfaces can be realized as the minimal resolution of the double cover of $\mathbb {P}^{1}\times \mathbb {P}^{1}$ branched along a specific $(4,\,4)$ curve. We show that, up to a finite group action, this stable pairs compactification is isomorphic to Kirwan's partial desingularization of the GIT quotient $(\mathbb {P}^{1})^{8}{/\!/}\mathrm {SL}_2$ with the symmetric linearization.

For infinitely many d, Hassett showed that special cubic fourfolds of discriminant d are related to polarised K3 surfaces of degree d via their Hodge structures. For half of the d, each associated K3 surface (S, L) canonically yields another one, (Sτ, Lτ). We prove that Sτ is isomorphic to the moduli space of stable coherent sheaves on S with Mukai vector (3, L, d/6). We also explain for which d the Hilbert schemes Hilbn (S) and Hilbn (Sτ) are birational.

We prove the deformation invariance of Kodaira dimension and of certain plurigenera and the existence of canonical models for log surfaces which are smooth over an integral Noetherian scheme $S$.

An intrinsic quadric is a normal projective variety with a Cox ring defined by a single quadratic relation. We provide explicit descriptions of these varieties in the smooth case for small Picard numbers. As applications, we figure out in this setting the Fano examples and (affirmatively) test Fujita’s freeness conjecture.

We calculate the dimension of cohomology groups for the holomorphic tangent bundles of each isomorphism class of the projective plane bundle over an elliptic curve. As an application, we construct the families of projective plane bundles, and prove that the families are effectively parametrized and complete.

The main goal of this paper is to show that Castelnuovo–Enriques’ $P_{12}$- theorem (a precise version of the rough classification of algebraic surfaces) also holds for algebraic surfaces $S$ defined over an algebraically closed field $k$ of positive characteristic ($\text{char}(k)=p>0$). The result relies on a main theorem describing the growth of the plurigenera for properly elliptic or properly quasielliptic surfaces (surfaces with Kodaira dimension equal to 1). We also discuss the limit cases, i.e., the families of surfaces which show that the result of the main theorem is sharp.

The aim of this paper is to prove that a $\text{K3}$ surface is the minimal model of the quotient of an Abelian surface by a group $G$ (respectively of a $\text{K3}$ surface by an Abelian group $G$) if and only if a certain lattice is primitively embedded in its Néron-Severi group. This allows one to describe the coarse moduli space of the $\text{K3}$ surfaces that are (rationally) $G$-covered by Abelian or $\text{K3}$ surfaces (in the latter case $G$ is an Abelian group). When $G$ has order 2 or $G$ is cyclic and acts on an Abelian surface, this result is already known; we extend it to the other cases.

Moreover, we prove that a $\text{K3}$ surface ${{X}_{G}}$ is the minimal model of the quotient of an Abelian surface by a group $G$ if and only if a certain configuration of rational curves is present on ${{X}_{G}}$. Again, this result was known only in some special cases, in particular, if $G$ has order 2 or 3.

We show that the Craighero–Gattazzo surface, the minimal resolution of an explicit complex quintic surface with four elliptic singularities, is simply connected. This was conjectured by Dolgachev and Werner, who proved that its fundamental group has a trivial profinite completion. The Craighero–Gattazzo surface is the only explicit example of a smooth simply connected complex surface of geometric genus zero with ample canonical class. We hope that our method will find other applications: to prove a topological fact about a complex surface we use an algebraic reduction mod $p$ technique and deformation theory.

We study moduli spaces of lattice-polarized K3 surfaces in terms of orbits of representations of algebraic groups. In particular, over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0, we show that in many cases, the nondegenerate orbits of a representation are in bijection with K3 surfaces (up to suitable equivalence) whose Néron–Severi lattice contains a given lattice. An immediate consequence is that the corresponding moduli spaces of these lattice-polarized K3 surfaces are all unirational. Our constructions also produce many fixed-point-free automorphisms of positive entropy on K3 surfaces in various families associated to these representations, giving a natural extension of recent work of Oguiso.

In this paper we prove that a smooth family of canonically polarized manifolds parametrized by a special (in the sense of Campana) quasi-projective variety is isotrivial.