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published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Let Y be a quartic hypersurface in P⁴ with terminal singularities. The Grothendieck-Lefschetz theorem states that any Cartier divisor on Y is the restriction of a Cartier divisor on P⁴. However, no such result holds for the group of Weil divisors. More generally, let Y be a terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-fold with Picard rank 1. Denote by s(Y )=h_4 (Y )-h² (Y ) = h_4 (Y )-1 the defect of Y. A variety is Q-factorial when every Weil divisor is Q-Cartier. The defect of Y is non-zero precisely when the Fano 3-fold Y is not Q-factorial. Very little is known about the topology of non Q-factorial terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-folds. Q-factoriality is a subtle topological property: it depends both on the analytic type and on the position of the singularities of Y . In this thesis, I endeavour to answer some basic questions related to this global topolgical property. First, I determine a bound on the defect of terminal quartic 3-folds and on the defect of terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-folds that do not contain a plane. Then, I state a geometric motivation of Q-factoriality. More precisely, given a non Q-factorial quartic 3-fold Y , Y contains a special surface, that is a Weil non-Cartier divisor on Y . I show that the degree of this special surface is bounded, and give a precise list of the possible surfaces. This question has traditionally been studied in the context of Mixed Hodge Theory. I have tackled it from the point of view of Mori theory. I use birational geometric methods to obtain these results.

Any genus $g$ surface, $\Sigma_{g,n},$ with $n$ boundary components may be given a trinion decomposition: a realization of the surface as a union of $2g-2+n$ trinions glued together along $3g-3+n$ of their boundary circles. Together with the flows of Goldman, Jeffrey and Weitsman use the trinion boundary circles in a decomposition of $\Sigma_{g,n}$ to obtain a Hamiltonian action of a compact torus $(S^1)^{3g-3+n'} $ on an open dense subset of the moduli space of certain gauge equivalence classes of flat $SU(2)-$connections on $\Sigma_{g,n}.$ Jeffrey and Weitsman also provide a complete description of the moment polytopes for these torus actions, and we make use of this description to study the cohomology of associated toric varieties. While we are able to make use of the work of Danilov to obtain the integral (rational) cohomology ring in the smooth (orbifold) case, we show that the aforementioned toric varieties almost always possess singularities worse than those of an orbifold. In these cases we use an algorithm of Bressler and Lunts to recover the intersection cohomology Betti numbers using the combinatorial information provided by the corresponding moment polytopes. The main contribution of this thesis is a computation of the intersection cohomology Betti numbers for the toric varieties associated to trinion decomposed surfaces $\Sigma_{2,0},\Sigma_{2,1},\Sigma_{3,0}, \Sigma_{3,1}, \Sigma_{4,0},$ and $\Sigma_{4,1}.$

Any genus $g$ surface, $\Sigma_{g,n},$ with $n$ boundary components may be given a trinion decomposition: a realization of the surface as a union of $2g-2+n$ trinions glued together along $3g-3+n$ of their boundary circles. Together with the flows of Goldman, Jeffrey and Weitsman use the trinion boundary circles in a decomposition of $\Sigma_{g,n}$ to obtain a Hamiltonian action of a compact torus $(S^1)^{3g-3+n'} $ on an open dense subset of the moduli space of certain gauge equivalence classes of flat $SU(2)-$connections on $\Sigma_{g,n}.$ Jeffrey and Weitsman also provide a complete description of the moment polytopes for these torus actions, and we make use of this description to study the cohomology of associated toric varieties. While we are able to make use of the work of Danilov to obtain the integral (rational) cohomology ring in the smooth (orbifold) case, we show that the aforementioned toric varieties almost always possess singularities worse than those of an orbifold. In these cases we use an algorithm of Bressler and Lunts to recover the intersection cohomology Betti numbers using the combinatorial information provided by the corresponding moment polytopes. The main contribution of this thesis is a computation of the intersection cohomology Betti numbers for the toric varieties associated to trinion decomposed surfaces $\Sigma_{2,0},\Sigma_{2,1},\Sigma_{3,0}, \Sigma_{3,1}, \Sigma_{4,0},$ and $\Sigma_{4,1}.$