Stable pairs and log flips

Abstract

This paper has two parts. In the first part, we review stable pairs and triples on curves, leading up to Thaddeus' diagram of flips and contractions starting from the blow-up of projective space along a curve embedded by a complete linear series of the form K + ample. In the second part, we identify log canonical divisors which exhibit Thaddeus' flips and contractions as "log" flips and contractions in the sense of the log-minimal-model program.