Type III contractions and quintic threefolds

Abstract

We study type III contractions of Calabi-Yau threefolds containing a ruled surface over a smooth curve. We discuss the conditions necessary for the image threefold to by smoothable. We describe the change in Hodge numbers caused by this contraction and smoothing deformation. A generalization of a fomula for calculating Hodge numbers of hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}^4$ with ordinary double and triple points is presented. We use these results to construct new Calabi-Yau threefolds of Picard rank two arising from a family of quintic threefolds containing a cone.