The Severi problem for rational curves on del Pezzo surfaces -- Damiano Testa, March 25, 2005

Let X be a smooth projective surface and choose a curve C on X. Let V_C be the set of all irreducible divisors on X linearly equivalent to C whose normalization is a rational curve. The Severi problem for rational curves on X with divisor class [C] consists of studying the irreducibility of the spaces V_C as C varies among all curves on X. In this talk, we will prove that all the spaces V_C are irreducible in the case where X is a del Pezzo surface, with a unique exception.