Sextic double solids, double covers of $\mathbb P^3$ branched along a sextic surface, are the lowest degree Gorenstein terminal Fano 3-folds, hence are expected to behave very rigidly in terms of birational geometry. Smooth sextic double solids, and those which are $\mathbb Q$-factorial with ordinary double points, are known to be birationally rigid. In this paper, we study sextic double solids with an isolated compound $A_n$ singularity. We prove a sharp bound $n \leq 8$, describe models for each n explicitly, and prove that sextic double solids with $n> 3$ are birationally nonrigid.

The $4 n^2$-inequality for smooth points plays an important role in the proofs of birational (super)rigidity. The main aim of this paper is to generalize such an inequality to terminal singular points of type $cA_1$, and obtain a $2 n^2$-inequality for $cA_1$ points. As applications, we prove birational (super)rigidity of sextic double solids, many other prime Fano 3-fold weighted complete intersections, and del Pezzo fibrations of degree $1$ over $\mathbb {P}^1$ satisfying the $K^2$-condition, all of which have at most terminal $cA_1$ singularities and terminal quotient singularities. These give first examples of birationally (super)rigid Fano 3-folds and del Pezzo fibrations admitting a $cA_1$ point which is not an ordinary double point.

Varieties fibered into del Pezzo surfaces form a class of possible outputs of the minimal model program. It is known that del Pezzo fibrations of degrees $1$ and $2$ over the projective line with smooth total space satisfying the so-called $K^2$ -condition are birationally rigid: their Mori fiber space structure is unique. This implies that they are not birational to any Fano varieties, conic bundles, or other del Pezzo fibrations. In particular, they are irrational. The families of del Pezzo fibrations with smooth total space of degree $2$ are rather special, as for most families a general del Pezzo fibration has the simplest orbifold singularities. We prove that orbifold del Pezzo fibrations of degree $2$ over the projective line satisfying explicit generality conditions as well as a generalized $K^2$ -condition are birationally rigid.

We prove the birational rigidity of Fano complete intersections of index 1 with a singular point of high multiplicity, which can be close to the degree of the variety. In particular, the groups of birational and biregular automorphisms of these varieties are equal, and they are non-rational. The proof is based on the techniques of the method of maximal singularities, the generalized 4n2-inequality for complete intersection singularities and the technique of hypertangent divisors.

In this short note, we show that a construction by Ottem provides an example of a rationally connected variety that is not birationally equivalent to a Mori dream space with terminal singularities.

Let $X\subset \mathbb{P}^{4}$ be a terminal factorial quartic $3$-fold. If $X$ is non-singular, $X$ is birationally rigid, i.e. the classical minimal model program on any terminal $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial projective variety $Z$ birational to $X$ always terminates with $X$. This no longer holds when $X$ is singular, but very few examples of non-rigid factorial quartics are known. In this article, we first bound the local analytic type of singularities that may occur on a terminal factorial quartic hypersurface $X\subset \mathbb{P}^{4}$. A singular point on such a hypersurface is of type $cA_{n}$ ($n\geqslant 1$), or of type $cD_{m}$ ($m\geqslant 4$) or of type $cE_{6},cE_{7}$ or $cE_{8}$. We first show that if $(P\in X)$ is of type $cA_{n}$, $n$ is at most $7$ and, if $(P\in X)$ is of type $cD_{m}$, $m$ is at most $8$. We then construct examples of non-rigid factorial quartic hypersurfaces whose singular loci consist (a) of a single point of type $cA_{n}$ for $2\leqslant n\leqslant 7$, (b) of a single point of type $cD_{m}$ for $m=4$ or $5$ and (c) of a single point of type $cE_{k}$ for $k=6,7$ or $8$.