We prove that $r$ independent homogeneous polynomials of the same degree $d$ become dependent when restricted to any hyperplane if and only if their inverse system parameterizes a variety whose $(d-1)$-osculating spaces have dimension smaller than expected. This gives an equivalence between an algebraic notion (called Weak Lefschetz Property) and a differential geometric notion, concerning varieties which satisfy certain Laplace equations. In the toric case, some relevant examples are classified and as byproduct we provide counterexamples to Ilardi's conjecture.

An inductive approach to classifying all toric Fano varieties is given. As an application of this technique, we present a classification of the toric Fano threefolds with at worst canonical singularities. Up to isomorphism, there are $674,\!688$ such varieties.

This paper addresses the problem of constructing a cycle-level intersection theory for toric varieties. We show that by making one global choice, we can determine a cycle representative for the intersection of an equivariant Cartier divisor with an invariant cycle on a toric variety. For a toric variety defined by a fan in $N$, the choice consists of giving an inner product or a complete flag for $M_\Q= \Qt \Hom(N,\mathbb{Z})$, or more generally giving for each cone $\s$ in the fan a linear subspace of $M_\Q$ complementary to $\s^\perp$, satisfying certain compatibility conditions. We show that these intersection cycles have properties analogous to the usual intersections modulo rational equivalence. If $X$ is simplicial (for instance, if $X$ is non-singular), we obtain a commutative ring structure to the invariant cycles of $X$ with rational coefficients. This ring structure determines cycles representing certain characteristic classes of the toric variety. We also discuss how to define intersection cycles that require no choices, at the expense of increasing the size of the coefficient field.

We characterize embeddability of algebraic varieties into smooth toric varieties and prevarieties. Our embedding results hold also in an equivariant context and thus generalize a well-known embedding theorem of Sumihiro on quasiprojective $G$-varieties. The main idea is to reduce the embedding problem to the affine case. This is done by constructing equivariant affine conoids, a tool which extends the concept of an equivariant affine cone over a projective $G$-variety to a more general framework.

Nous \'etudions les polyn\^omes $F \in \C \{S_\tau\} [Y] $ \`a coefficients dans l'anneau de germes de fonctions holomorphes au point sp\'ecial d'une vari\'et\'e torique affine. Nous g\'en\'eralisons \`a ce cas la param\'etrisation classique des singularit\'es quasi-ordinaires. Cela fait intervenir d'une part une g\'en\'eralization de l'algorithme de Newton-Puiseux, et d'autre part une relation entre le poly\`edre de Newton du discriminant de $F$ par rapport \`a $Y$ et celui de $F$ au moyen du polytope-fibre de Billera et Sturmfels~\cite{Sturmfels}. Cela nous permet enfin de calculer, sous des hypoth\`eses de non d\'eg\'en\'erescence, les sommets du poly\`edre de Newton du discriminant a partir de celui de $F$, et les coefficients correspondants \`a partir des coefficients des exposants de $F$ qui sont dans les ar\^etes de son poly\`edre de Newton.