Pseudo-Index of Fano Manifolds and Smooth Blow-Ups

Suppose π: X → Y is a smooth blow-up along a submanifold Z of Y between complex Fano manifolds X and Y of pseudo-indices i_X and i_Y respectively (recall that i_X is defined by i_X :=min {−K_X·C | C is a rational curve of X}). We prove that if 2 dim (Z) < dim (Y)+i_Y −1 and show that this result is optimal by classifying the ‘boundary’ cases. As expected, these results are obtained by studying rational curves on X and Y.