Geometric Manin's Conjecture and rational curves

Abstract

Let $X$ be a smooth projective Fano variety over the complex numbers. We study the moduli spaces of rational curves on $X$ using the perspective of Manin's Conjecture. In particular, we bound the dimension and number of components of spaces of rational curves on $X$. We propose a Geometric Manin's Conjecture predicting the growth rate of a counting function associated to the irreducible components of these moduli spaces.

29 pages; a minor gap in Section 7 has been addressed. To appear in Compositio Mathematica