Spinorial Fano manifolds

Abstract

We construct prime Fano manifolds from spin representations of $Spin_n$ for $n\le 14$. In this range, and if $n\ne 13$, the projectivizations of these representations are prehomogeneous, and we deduce that our Fano manifolds are locally rigid and, up to a few exceptions, quasi-homogeneous under the action of their automorphism groups. For $n=13$ we obtain a non-trivial family of minimal compactifications of $SL_3\times SL_3$, modulo some finite group.