Weight sensitivity in K-stability of Fano varieties

Abstract: We prove that, for a spherical Fano threefold not in the Mori-Mukai family 2-29, and a weight function associated with the action of the connected center of a Levi subgroup of its automorphism group, weighted K-polystability is equivalent to vanishing of the weighted Futaki invariant. This is surprising since unlike the case of toric Fano manifold, there exist non-product, special, equivariant test configurations. For the K\"ahler-Einstein Fano threefold 2-29, and for well-chosen torus action on the three dimensional quadric, we show that this property is false and exhibit explicit examples of weighted optimal degenerations. We then generalize this to higher-dimensional quadrics and blowups of quadrics along a codimension 2 subquadric.