The Algebraic Montgomery-Yang Problem

Abstract

We completely resolve the algebraic Montgomery - Yang problem, a conjecture of Kollar stating that every rational homology projective plane with quotient singularities and a simply-connected smooth locus has at most three singular points. The crux of our proof is a new lattice theoretic constraint, obtained by combining Donaldson's diagonalization theorem with the distinguished spin^c structure on the smooth locus whose determinant line bundle is the canonical bundle. Together with the orbifold Bogomolov - Miyaoka - Yau inequality, this constraint rules out all remaining cases in the problem and completes the proof.