Burt Totaro’s research while affiliated with University of California, Los Angeles and other places

Bott proved a strong vanishing theorem for sheaf cohomology on projective space, namely that $H^j(X,\Omega^i_X\otimes L)=0$ for every $j>0$, $i\geq 0$, and L ample. This holds for toric varieties, but not for most other varieties. We classify the smooth Fano 3-folds that satisfy Bott vanishing. There are many more than expected. Along the way, we conjecture that for every projective birational morphism $\pi\colon X\to Y$ of smooth varieties, and every line bundle A on X that is ample over Y, the higher direct image sheaf $R^j\pi_*(\Omega^i_X\otimes A)$ is zero for every $j>0$ and $i\geq 0$.

We construct smooth projective varieties of general type with the smallest known volume and others with the most known vanishing plurigenera in high dimensions. The optimal volume bound is expected to decay doubly exponentially with dimension, and our examples achieve this decay rate. We also consider the analogous questions for other types of varieties. For example, in every dimension we conjecture the terminal Fano variety of minimal volume, and the canonical Calabi-Yau variety of minimal volume. In each case, our examples exhibit doubly exponential behavior.

We construct klt projective varieties with ample canonical class and the smallest known volume. We also find exceptional klt Fano varieties with the smallest known anticanonical volume. We conjecture that our examples have the smallest volume in every dimension, and we give low-dimensional evidence for that. In order to improve on earlier examples, we are forced to consider weighted hypersurfaces that are not quasi-smooth. We show that our Fano varieties are exceptional by computing their global log canonical threshold (or $\alpha$-invariant) exactly; it is extremely large, roughly $2^{2^n}$ in dimension n. These examples give improved lower bounds in Birkar's theorem on boundedness of complements for Fano varieties.

The Witt ring of quadratic forms over a field has divided power operations. On the other hand, it follows from Garibaldi-Merkurjev-Serre's work on cohomological invariants that all operations on the Witt ring are linear combinations of exterior powers. We find the explicit formula for the divided powers as a linear combination of exterior powers. The coefficients involve the ``tangent numbers'', related to Bernoulli numbers. The divided powers on the Witt ring give another construction of the divided powers on Milnor K-theory modulo 2.

Call a projective variety X Calabi-Yau if its canonical divisor is ${\bf Q}$-linearly equivalent to zero. The smallest positive integer m with $mK_X$ linearly equivalent to zero is called the index of X. We construct Calabi-Yau varieties with the largest known index in high dimensions. In our examples, the index grows doubly exponentially with dimension. We conjecture that our examples have the largest possible index, with supporting evidence in low dimensions. The examples are obtained by mirror symmetry from our Calabi-Yau varieties with an ample Weil divisor of small volume. We also give examples for several related problems, including Calabi-Yau varieties with large orbifold Betti numbers or small minimal log discrepancy.

We determine the optimal inequality of the form ∑k=1maksinkx≤1$\sum _{k=1}^m a_k\sin kx\le 1$, in the sense that ∑k=1mak$\sum _{k=1}^m a_k$ is maximal. We also solve exactly the analogous problem for the sawtooth (or signed fractional part) function. Equivalently, we solve exactly an optimization problem about equidistribution on the unit circle.

We construct smooth projective varieties of general type with the smallest known volume and others with the most known vanishing plurigenera in high dimensions. The optimal volume bound is expected to decay doubly exponentially with dimension, and our examples achieve this decay rate. We also consider the analogous questions for other types of varieties. For example, in every dimension we conjecture the terminal Fano variety of minimal volume, and the canonical Calabi-Yau variety of minimal volume. In each case, our examples exhibit doubly exponential behavior.

We formulate a conjecture on actions of the multiplicative group in motivic homotopy theory. In short, if the multiplicative group G_m acts on a quasi-projective scheme U such that U is attracted as t approaches 0 in G_m to a closed subset Y in U, then the inclusion from Y to U should be an A^1-homotopy equivalence. We prove several partial results. In particular, over the complex numbers, the inclusion is a homotopy equivalence on complex points. The proofs use an analog of Morse theory for singular varieties. Application: the Hilbert scheme of points on affine n-space is homotopy equivalent to the subspace consisting of schemes supported at the origin.

We construct smooth projective varieties of general type with the smallest known volumes in high dimensions. Among other examples, we construct varieties of general type with many vanishing plurigenera, more than any polynomial function of the dimension. As part of the construction, we solve exactly an optimization problem about equidistribution on the unit circle in terms of the sawtooth (or signed fractional part) function. We also solve exactly the analogous optimization problem for the sine function. Equivalently, we determine the optimal inequality of the form $\sum_{k=1}^m a_k\sin kx\leq 1$, in the sense that $\sum_{k=1}^m a_k$ is maximal.