Algebraic Geometry Seminar

It has been recently shown by Chen-Donaldson-Sun that the existence of a Kahler-Einstein metric on a Fano manifold is equivalent to the property of K-stability. In general, however, this does not lead to an effective criterion for deciding whether such a metric exists, since verifying the property of K-stability requires one to consider infinitely many special degenerations called test configurations. I will discuss recent joint work with H. Suess in which we show that for Fano manifolds with complexity-one torus actions, there are only finitely many test configurations one needs to consider. This leads to an effective method for verifying K-stability, and hence the existence of a Kahler-Einstein metric. As an application, we provide new examples of Kahler-Einstein Fano threefolds.