Symplectic rational blow-ups on rational 4-manifolds

Abstract: We prove that if a symplectic 4-manifold $X$ becomes a rational 4-manifold after applying rational blow-down surgery, then the symplectic 4-manifold $X$ is originally rational. That is, a symplectic rational blow-up of a rational symplectic $4$-manifold is again rational. As an application we show that a degeneration of a family of smooth rational complex surfaces is a rational surface if the degeneration has at most quotient surface singularities, which generalizes slightly a classical result of [B\u{a}descu, 1986] in algebraic geometry under a mild additional condition.