Fano manifolds are complex projective manifolds having positive first Chern class. The positivity condition on the first Chern class has far reaching geometric and arithmetic implications. For instance, Fano manifolds are covered by rational curves, and families of Fano manifolds over one dimensional bases always admit holomorphic sections. In recent years, there has been great effort towards defining suitable higher analogues of the Fano condition. Higher Fano manifolds are expected to enjoy stronger versions of several of the properties of Fano manifolds. For instance, they should be covered by higher dimensional rational varieties, and families of higher Fano manifolds over higher dimensional bases should admit meromorphic sections (modulo the Brauer obstruction).
In this talk, I will discuss higher Fano manifolds which are defined in terms of positivity of higher Chern characters. After a survey of what is currently known, I will discuss recent joint work with Carolina Araujo, Roya Beheshti, Kelly Jabbusch, Svetlana Makarova, Enrica Mazzon and Nivedita Viswanathan, regarding higher Fano toric manifolds.
Note: Refreshments at 3:30PM.