Cones of effective cycles on blow ups of projective spaces along rational curves

Abstract

In this paper we examine the cones of effective cycles on blow ups of projective spaces along smooth rational curves. We determine explicitly the cones of divisors and 1- and 2-dimensional cycles on blow ups of rational normal curves, and strengthen these results in cases of low dimension. Central to our results is the geometry of resolutions of the secant varieties of the curves which are blown up, and our computations of their effective cycles may be of independent interest.