Rationally connected manifolds and semipositivity of the Ricci curvature

Abstract

This work establishes a structure theorem for compact Kähler manifolds with semipositive anticanonical bundle. Up to finite étale cover, it is proved that such manifolds split holomorphically and isometrically as a product of Ricci flat varieties and of rationally connected manifolds. The proof is based on a characterization of rationally connected manifolds through the non existence of certain twisted contravariant tensor products of the tangent bundle, along with a generalized holonomy principle for pseudoeffective line bundles. A crucial ingredient for this is the characterization of uniruledness by the property that the anticanonical bundle is not pseudoeffective.

arXiv comment15 pages, the second version incorporates minor corrections made after the refereeing