Mar 12: The Cox ring perspective on birational geometry

The Mori program for birational classification of algebraic varieties attempts to classify algebraic varieties by producing canonical models, polarized by the canonical class. This is accomplished through a series of algebraic surgery operations, such as flips, flops, and divisorial contractions. A complementary viewpoint is that of the total coordinate ring or Cox ring. Here birational maps are understood by looking at the totality of all linear series on the variety, endowed with a ring structure directly analogous to that of the homogeneous coordinate ring of a projective variety. I will give an overview of how Cox rings can help clarify many phenomena in birational geometry.

Mar 14: Cox rings and characterization of toric varieties

Recently Moraga and Svaldi proved a conjecture of Shokoruv, characterizing in the relative case toroidal morphisms as those which admit divisors with many components relative to the Picard rank. I will discuss the global version, proved in previous joint work with McKernan, Svaldi and Zong. The proof relies on characterizing the singularity type of the Cox ring, giving another example of the use of these invariants in birational geometry.