Linear subvarieties of hypersurfaces and unirationality

The de Jong-Debarre Conjecture predicts that the space of lines on any smooth hypersurface of degree d <= n in P^n has dimension 2n-d-3. We prove this conjecture for n > 2d, improving on the previously-known exponential bounds. We prove an analogous result for k-planes, and use this generalization to prove that an arbitrary smooth hypersurface is unirational if n > 2^{d!}. This is joint work with Roya Beheshti.