(This is a part of Seminars on Algebraic Surfaces and Related Topics.)
We investigate the correspondence between three theories of deformations of rational surface singularities: de Jong and van Straten’s picture deformations, Kollár’s P-resolutions, and Pinkham’s smoothings of negative weights. We provide an explicit method for obtaining, from a given deformation in one theory, deformations in other theories that parameterize the same irreducible components of the deformation space of the singularity. We employ the semi-stable minimal model program significantly for this purpose. We prove Kollár conjecture for various sandwiched surface singularities as an application. This is a joint work with Heesang Park.