We study the existence of linear series on curves lying on an Enriques surface and general in their complete linear system. Using a method that works also below the Bogomolov-Reider range, we compute, in all cases, the gonality of such curves. We also give a new result about the positive cone of line bundles on an Enriques surface and we show how this relates to the gonality.
A Brill-Noether locus is a subvariety of M_g consisting of curves having certain linear series g^r_d. We study the relative position of Brill-Noether loci with respect to the gonality stratification of M_g. We construct smooth curves in P^r of given degree and genus and having the `expected' gonality. As an application we give a new proof of our result about the Kodaira dimension of the moduli space of curves of genus 23.
We describe a conjectural stratification of the Brill-Noether variety for general curves of fixed genus and gonality. As evidence for this conjecture, we show that this Brill-Noether variety has at least as many irreducible components as predicted by the conjecture, and that each of these components has the expected dimension. Our proof uses combinatorial and tropical techniques. Specifically, we analyze containment relations between the various strata of tropical Brill-Noether loci identified by Pflueger in his classification of special divisors on chains of loops.
The main purpose in this paper is to study the gonality, the Clifford index and the Clifford dimension on linearly equivalent smooth curves on Enriques surfaces. The method is similar to techniques of M.Green $\&$ R.Lazarsfeld and G.Pareschi.
We study the pencils of minimal degree on the smooth curves lying on a K3 surface X which carries a fixed-point free involution. Generically, the gonality of these curves is totally governed by the genus 1 fibrations of X
We complete our study of linear series on curves lying on an Enriques surface by showing that, with the exception of smooth plane quintics, there are no exceptional curves on Enriques surfaces, that is, curves for which the Clifford index is not computed by a pencil.
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a big and nef line bundle L of any degree on a K3 surface or Enriques surface to be k-very ample and k-spanned. Furthermore, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for a spanned and big line bundle on a K3 surface to be birationally k-very ample and birationally k-spanned, and relate these concepts to the Clifford index and gonality of smooth curves in |L|.
We prove a generalization of the Brill-Noether theorem for the variety of special divisors $W^r_d(C)$ on a general curve $C$ of prescribed gonality. Our main theorem gives a closed formula for the dimension of $W^r_d(C)$. We build on previous work of Pflueger, who used an analysis of the tropical divisor theory of special chains of cycles to give upper bounds on the dimensions of Brill--Noether varieties on such curves. We prove his conjecture, that this upper bound is achieved for a general curve. Our methods introduce logarithmic stable maps as a systematic tool in Brill-Noether theory. A pr…
The gonality sequence $(d_r)_{r\geq1}$ of a smooth algebraic curve comprises the minimal degrees $d_r$ of linear systems of rank $r$. We explain two approaches to compute the gonality sequence of smooth curves in $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^1$: a tropical and a classical approach. The tropical approach uses the recently developed Brill--Noether theory on tropical curves and Baker's specialization of linear systems from curves to metric graphs. The classical one extends the work of Hartshorne on plane curves to curves on $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^1$.
We use Young tableaux to compute the dimension of $V^r$, the Prym-Brill-Noether locus of a folded chain of loops of any gonality. This tropical result yields a new upper bound on the dimensions of algebraic Prym-Brill-Noether loci. Moreover, we prove that $V^r$ is pure-dimensional and connected in codimension $1$ when $\dim V^r \geq 1$. We then compute the first Betti number of this locus for even gonality when the dimension is exactly $1$, and compute the cardinality when the locus is finite and the edge lengths are generic.
Let $L$ be a line bundle on a K3 or Enriques surface. We give a vanishing theorem for $H^1(L)$ that, unlike most vanishing theorems, gives necessary and sufficient geometrical conditions for the vanishing. This result is essential in our study of Brill-Noether theory of curves on Enriques surfaces (reference [KL1]) and of Enriques-Fano threefolds (reference [KLM]).
For a projective nonsingular curve of genus $g$, the Brill-Noether locus $W^r_d(C)$ parametrizes line bundles of degree $d$ over $C$ with at least $r+1$ sections. When the curve is generic and the Brill-Noether number $ρ(g,r,d)$ equals $1$, one can then talk of the \emph{Brill-Noether curve}. In this paper, we explore the first two invariants of this curve, giving a new way of calculating the genus of this curve and computing its gonality when $C$ has genus 5.
The Brill-Noether Theorem gives necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a linear series. Here we consider a general n-fold, etale cyclic cover p of a curve C of genus g and investigate for which numbers r,d a linear series of dimension r and degree d exists on the covering curve. For r=1 this gives gonality. Using degeneration to a special singular example (containing a Castelnuovo canonical curve) and the theory of of limit linear series for tree-like curves we show that the Plücker formula yields a necessary condition for the existence of a linear series (of dimension r, deg…
We discuss the role of K3 surfaces in the context of Mercat's conjecture in higher rank Brill-Noether theory. Using liftings of Koszul classes, we show that Mercat's conjecture in rank 2 fails for any number of sections and for any gonality stratum along a Noether-Lefschetz divisor inside the locus of curves lying on K3 surfaces. Then we show that Mercat's conjecture in rank 3 fails even for curves lying on K3 surfaces with Picard number 1. Finally, we provide a detailed proof of Mercat's conjecture in rank 2 for general curves of genus 11, and describe explicitly the action of the Fourier-Muk…
We show that the non-Archimedean skeleton of the Prym variety associated to an unramified double cover of an algebraic curve is naturally isomorphic (as a principally polarized tropical abelian variety) to the tropical Prym variety of the associated tropical double cover. This confirms a conjecture by Jensen and the first author. We prove a new upper bound on the dimension of the Prym-Brill-Noether locus for generic unramified double covers of curves with fixed even gonality on the base. Our methods also give a new proof of the classical Prym-Brill-Noether Theorem for generic unramified double…
We consider a general curve of fixed gonality k and genus g. We propose an estimate for the dimension of the variety $W^r_d(C)$ of special linear series on C, by solving an analogous problem in tropical geometry. Using work of Coppens and Martens, we prove that this estimate is exactly correct if k is at least g/5 + 2, and is an upper bound in all other cases. We also completely characterize the cases in which $W^r_d(C)$ has the same dimension as for a general curve of genus g.
We study Brill-Noether existence on a finite graph using methods from polyhedral geometry and lattices. We start by formulating analogues of the Brill-Noether conjectures (both the existence and non-existence parts) for $\mathbb{R}$-divisors, i.e. divisors with real coefficients, on a graph. We then reformulate the Brill-Noether existence conjecture for $\mathbb{R}$-divisors on a graph in geometric terms, that we refer to as the covering radius conjecture and we show a weak version, in support of it. Using this, we show an approximate version of the Brill-Noether existence conjecture for divis…
We generalize, for integral curves, a celebrated result of Max Noether on global sections of the n-dualizing sheaf of a smooth nonhyperelliptic curve. This is our main result. We also obtain an embedding of a non-Gorenstein curve in a way that we can express the dimensions of the components of the ideal in terms of the main invariants of the curve. Afterwards we focus on gonality, Clifford index and Koszul cohomology of non-Gorenstein curves by allowing torsion free sheaves of rank 1 in their definitions. We find an upper bound for the gonality, which agrees with Brill-Noether's one for a rati…
We completely describe all Brill-Noether loci on metric graphs consisting of a chain of g cycles with arbitrary edge lengths, generalizing work of Cools, Draisma, Payne, and Robeva. The structure of these loci is determined by displacement tableaux on rectangular partitions, which we define. More generally, we fix a marked point on the rightmost cycle, and completely analyze the loci of divisor classes with specified ramification at the marked point, classifying them using displacement tableaux. Our results give a tropical proof of the generalized Brill-Noether theorem for general marked curve…
