Abstract

We consider smooth complex projective varieties X which are rationally connected by rational curves of degree d with respect to a fixed ample line bundle L on X, and we focus our attention on conic connected manifolds (d=2) and on rationally cubic connected manifolds (d=3). Conic connected manifolds were studied by Ionescu and Russo; they considered conic connected manifolds embedded in projective space (i.e. L is very ample) and they proved a classification theorem for these manifolds. We show that their classification result holds true assuming just the ampleness of L. Moreover we give a different proof of a theorem due to Kachi and Sato; this result characterizes a special subclass of conic connected manifolds. As already said before, we study also rationally cubic connected manifolds. We prove that if rationally cubic connected manifolds are covered by “lines”, i.e. by curves of degree 1 with respect to L, then the Picard number of X is equal to or less than 3; moreover we show that if the Picard number is equal to 3 then there is a covering family of “lines” whose numerical class spans a negative extremal ray of the Kleiman-Mori cone of X. Unfortunately, for rationally cubic connected manifolds which don't admit a covering family of “lines” there isn't an upper bound on the Picard number. However we prove that if we consider rationally cubic connected manifolds which are not covered by “lines” but are Fano then up to a few exceptions in dimension 2 also the Picard number of these manifolds is equal to or less than 3. In particular, supposing that the dimension of X is greater than 2, we show that either the Picard number is equal to or less than 2 or X is the blow up of projective space along two disjoint subvarieties that are linear subspaces or quadrics.