Birational symplectic manifolds and their deformations

Abstract

The known counterexamples to the global Torelli theorem for higher-dimensional hyperkahler manifolds are provided by birational manifolds. We address the question whether two birational hyperkahler manifolds (i.e. irreducible symplectic) manifolds always define non-separated points in the moduli space of marked manifolds. An affirmative answer is given for the cases of Mukai's elementary transformations and birational correspondences which are isomorphic in codimension two. The techniques are applied to show that the moduli spaces of rank two sheaves on a K3 surface are deformation equivalent to appropriate Hilbert schemes.