We show that the secant variety of a linearly normal smooth curve of degree at least 2g+3 is arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay, and we use this information to study the graded Betti numbers of the secant variety.
We prove that the minimal free resolution of the secant variety of a curve is asymptotically pure. As a corollary, we show that the Betti numbers of converge to a normal distribution.
We show that if C is a linearly normal smooth curve embedded by a line bundle of degree at least 2g+3+p then the secant variety to the curve satisfies N_{3,p}.
Under certain effective positivity conditions, we show that the secant variety to a smooth variety satisfies $N_{3,p}$. For smooth curves, we provide the best possible effective bound on the degree $d$ of the embedding, $d\geq 2g+3+p$.
We introduce a relativization of the secant sheaves used by Ein, Green and Lazarsfeld and apply this construction to the study of syzygies of canonical curves. As a first application, we give a simpler proof of Voisin's Theorem for general canonical curves. This completely determines the terms of the minimal free resolution of the coordinate ring of such curves. Secondly, in the case of curves of even genus, we enhance Voisin's Theorem by providing a structure theorem for the last syzygy space, resolving the Geometric Syzygy Conjecture in even genus.
We show that the linear syzygy spaces of elliptic normal curves, their secant varieties and of bielliptic canonical curves are spanned by geometric syzygies.
We study curves consisting of unions of projective lines whose intersections are given by graphs. Under suitable hypotheses on the graph, these so-called \emph{graph curves} can be embedded in projective space as line arrangements. We discuss property $N_p$ for these embeddings and are able to produce products of linear forms that generate the ideal in certain cases. We also briefly discuss questions regarding the higher-dimensional subspace arrangements obtained by taking the secant varieties of graph curves.
In recent years, the equations defining secant varieties and their syzygies have attracted considerable attention. The purpose of the present paper is to conduct a thorough study on secant varieties of curves by settling several conjectures and revealing interaction between singularities and syzygies. The main results assert that if the degree of the embedding line bundle of a nonsingular curve of genus $g$ is greater than $2g+2k+p$ for nonnegative integers $k$ and $p$, then the $k$-th secant variety of the curve has normal Du Bois singularities, is arithmetically Cohen--Macaulay, and satisfie…
We study the syzygies of secant ideals of Veronese subrings of a fixed commutative graded algebra over a field of characteristic 0. One corollary is that the degrees of the minimal generators of the ith syzygy module of the coordinate ring of the rth secant variety of any Veronese embedding of a projective scheme X can be bounded by a constant that only depends on i, r, and X, and not on the choice of the Veronese embedding.
We give simple geometric proofs of Aprodu-Farkas-Papadima-Raicu-Weyman's theorem on syzygies of tangent developable surfaces of rational normal curves and Raicu-Sam's result on syzygies of K3 carpets. As a consequence, we obtain a quick proof of Green's conjecture for general curves of genus $g$ over an algebraically closed field $\mathbf{k}$ with $\operatorname{char}(\mathbf{k}) = 0$ or $\operatorname{char}(\mathbf{k}) \geq \lfloor (g-1)/2 \rfloor$. We also show the arithmetic normality of tangent developable surfaces of arbitrary smooth projective curves of large degree.
On a special line bundle $L$ on a projective curve $C$ we introduce a geometric condition called $(Δ_q)$. When $L=K_C$ this condition implies gon$(C) \ge q+2$. For an arbitrary special $L$ we show that $(Δ_3)$ implies that $L$ has the well-known property $(M_3)$, generalizing a similar result proved by Voisin in the case $L=K_C$.
Over a field of characteristic $0$, we prove that for each $r \geq 0$ there exists a constant $C(r)$ so that the prime ideal of the $r$th secant variety of any Plücker-embedded Grassmannian ${\bf Gr}(d,n)$ is generated by polynomials of degree at most $C(r)$, where $C(r)$ is independent of $d$ and $n$. This bounded generation ultimately reduces to proving a poset is noetherian, we develop a new method to do this. We then translate the structure we develop to the language of functor categories to prove the $i$th syzygy module of the coordinate ring of the $r$th secant variety of any Plücker-emb…
In the 1980's, work of Green and Lazarsfeld helped to uncover the beautiful interplay between the geometry of the embedding of a curve and the syzygies of its defining equations. Similar results hold for the first secant variety of a curve, and there is a natural conjectural picture extending to higher secant varieties as well. We present an introduction to the algebra and geometry used in previous work of the authors to study syzygies of secant varieties of curves with an emphasis on examples of explicit computations and elementary cases that illustrate the geometric principles at work.
The Green-Lazarsfeld secant conjecture predicts that the syzygies of a curve of sufficiently high degree are controlled by its special secants. We prove this conjecture for all curves of Clifford index at least two and not bielliptic and for all line bundles of a certain degree. Our proof is based on a classic result of Martens and Mumford on Brill-Noether varieties and on a simple vanishing criterion that comes from the interpretation of syzygies through symmetric products of curves.
These lectures discuss recent advances on syzygies on algebraic curves, especially concerning the Green, the Prym-Green and the Green-Lazarsfeld Secant Conjectures. The methods used are largely geometric and variational, with a special emphasis on examples and explicit calculations. The notes are based on series of lectures given in Daejeon (March 2013), Rome (November-December 2015) and Guanajuato (February 2016).
We study the relationship between the equations defining a projective variety and properties of its secant varieties. In particular, we use information about the syzygies among the defining equations to derive smoothness and normality statements about Sec(X) and also to obtain information about linear systems on the blow up of projective space along a variety X. We use these results to geometrically construct, for varieties of arbitrary dimension, a flip first described in the case of curves by M. Thaddeus via Geometric Invariant Theory, and to give some examples of vanishing theorems for the …
In projective algebraic geometry, there are classical and fundamental results that describe the structure of geometry and syzygies, and many of them characterize varieties of minimal degree and del Pezzo varieties. In this paper, we consider analogous objects in the category of higher secant varieties. Our main theorems say that there is a matryoshka structure among those basic objects including a generalized $K_{p,1}$ theorem, syzygetic and geometric characterizations of higher secant varieties of minimal degree and del Pezzo higher secant varieties, defined in this paper. For our purpose, we…
Generalizing the well-known Green Conjecture on syzygies of canonical curves, Green and Lazarsfeld formulated in 1986 the Secant Conjecture predicting that a line bundle L of sufficiently high degree on a curve has a non-linear p-syzygy if and only if L fails to be (p+1)-very ample. Via lattice theory for special K3 surfaces, Voisin's solution of the classical Green Conjecture and calculations on moduli stacks of pointed curves, we prove: (1) The Green-Lazarsfeld Secant Conjecture in various degree of generality, including its strongest possible form in the divisorial case in the universal Jac…
Under an explicit positivity condition, we show the first secant variety of a linearly normal smooth variety is projectively normal, give results on the regularity of the ideal of the secant variety, and give conditions on the variety that are equivalent to the secant variety being arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay. Under this same condition, we then show that if $X$ satisfies $N_{p+2\dim(X)}$, then the secant variety satisfies $N_{3,p}$.
We identify Feigin-Odesskii brackets $q_{n,1}(C)$, associated with a normal elliptic curve of degree $n$, $C\subset {\mathbb P}^{n-1}$, with the skew-symmetric $n\times n$ matrix of quadratic forms introduced by Fisher in arXiv:1510.04327 in connection with some minimal free resolutions related to the secant varieties of $C$. On the other hand, we show that for odd $n$, the generators of the ideal of the secant variety of $C$ of codimension $3$ give a Cremona transformation of ${\mathbb P}^{n-1}$, generalizing the quadro-cubic Cremona transformation of ${\mathbb P}^4$. We identify this transfo…
We give positivity conditions on the embedding of a smooth variety which guarantee the normality of the secant variety, generalizing earlier results of the author and others. We also give classes of secant varieties satisfying the Hodge conjecture as well as a result on the singular locus of degenerate secant varieties.
For a smooth curve of genus $g$ embedded by a line bundle of degree at least $2g+3$ we show that the ideal sheaf of the secant variety is 5-regular. This bound is sharp with respect to both the degree of the embedding and the bound on the regularity. Further, we show that the secant variety is projectively normal for the generic embedding of degree at least $2g+3$. We also give a conjectural description of the resolutions of the ideals of higher secant varieties.
If $X\subset \mathbb{P}^n$ is a projective non degenerate variety, the $X$-rank of a point $P\in \mathbb{P}^n$ is defined to be the minimum integer $r$ such that $P$ belongs to the span of $r$ points of $X$. We describe the complete stratification of the fourth secant variety of any Veronese variety $X$ via the $X$-rank. This result has an equivalent translation in terms both of symmetric tensors and homogeneous polynomials. It allows to classify all the possible integers $r$ that can occur in the minimal decomposition of either a symmetric tensor or a homogeneous polynomial of $X$-border rank…
We prove that the ideal of the variety of secant lines to a Segre--Veronese variety is generated in degree three by minors of flattenings. In the special case of a Segre variety this was conjectured by Garcia, Stillman and Sturmfels, inspired by work on algebraic statistics, as well as by Pachter and Sturmfels, inspired by work on phylogenetic inference. In addition, we describe the decomposition of the coordinate ring of the secant line variety of a Segre--Veronese variety into a sum of irreducible representations under the natural action of a product of general linear groups.
Suppose X is a projective variety, which needs not be smooth, and L an ample divisor on X. We show that there are integers c and b such that for any nonnegative integer p, L^d is normally generated and embeds X as a variety who defining ideal has linear syzygies upto the p-th step (i.e. L^d has property N_p) for all d >= cp + b.
We first show that the union of a projective curve with one of its extremal secant lines satisfies the linear general position principle for hyperplane sections. We use this to give an improved approximation of the Betti numbers of curves ${\mathcal C} \subset \mathbb P^r_K$ of maximal regularity with $°{\mathcal C} \leq 2r -3.$ In particular we specify the number and degrees of generators of the vanishing ideal of such curves. We apply these results to study surfaces $X \subset \mathbb P^r_K$ whose generic hyperplane section is a curve of maximal regularity. We first give a criterion for "an …
We give an upper bound for the rank of the border rank 3 partially symmetric tensors. In the special case of border rank 3 tensors $T\in V_1\otimes \cdots \otimes V_k$ (Segre case) we can show that all ranks among 3 and $k-1$ arise and if $\dim V_i \geq 3$ for all $i$'s, then also all the ranks between $k$ and $2k-1$ arise.
We consider here the problem, which is quite classical in Algebraic geometry, of studying the secant varieties of a projective variety $X$. The case we concentrate on is when $X$ is a Veronese variety, a Grassmannian or a Segre variety. Not only these varieties are among the ones that have been most classically studied, but a strong motivation in taking them into consideration is the fact that they parameterize, respectively, symmetric, skew-symmetric and general tensors, which are decomposable, and their secant varieties give a stratification of tensors via tensor rank. We collect here most o…
A variety of minimal degree is one of the basic objects in projective algebraic geometry and has been classified and characterized in many aspects. On the other hand, there are also minimal objects in the category of higher secant varieties, and their algebraic and geometric structures seem to share many similarities with those of varieties of minimal degree. We prove in this paper that higher secant varieties of minimal degree have determinantal presentation of two types, i.e. scroll type and Veronese type. Our result generalizes the del Pezzo-Bertini classification for varieties of minimal d…
When present, the Cohen-Macaulay property can be useful for finding the minimal defining equations of an algebraic variety. It is conjectured that all secant varieties of Segre products of projective spaces are arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay. A summary of the known cases where the conjecture is true is given. An inductive procedure based on the work of Landsberg and Weyman (LW-lifting) is described and used to obtain resolutions of orbits of secant varieties from those of smaller secant varieties. A new computation of the minimal free resolution of the variety of border rank 4 tensors of format…
We give a new method of computation of the degree of the third secant variety of a smooth curve C in P^(d-2) of genus 2 and degree d>=8, using the presentation of the third secant variety as the union of all scrolls that are defined via a g^1_3 on C.
We determine set theoretic defining equations for the third secant variety of the Segre product of $n$ projective spaces, and from the proof of the main statement we derive an upper bound for the degrees of these equations.
To complete the classification theory and the structure theory of varieties of almost minimal degree, that is of non-degenerate irreducible projective varieties whose degree exceeds the codimension by precisely 2, a natural approach is to investigate simple projections of varieties of minimal degree. Let $\tilde X \subset {\mathbb P}^{r+1}_K$ be a variety of minimal degree and of codimension at least 2, and consider $X_p = π_p (\tilde X) \subset {\mathbb P}^r_K$ where $p \in {\mathbb P}^{r+1}_K \backslash \tilde X$. By \cite{B-Sche}, it turns out that the cohomological and local properties of …
Let X be a smooth projective variety and let K be the canonical divisor of X. In this paper, we study embeddings of X given by adjoint line bundles of the form K+L, where L is an ample line bundle. When X is a regular surface (i.e. H^1(X, O_X) = 0), we obtain a numerical criterion for K+L to have property Np. When X is a regular variety of arbitrary dimension, under a mild condition, we give an explicit calculation for the regularity of the ideal sheaves of such embeddings.
We determine non hyper elliptic curves of genus $g(C)\geq 9$, such that for some very ample line bundle on them and for some integers d and r with some prescribed assumptions, the dimension of secant loci, attains one less than its maximum value. Then we proceed to generalize and extend a problem of M. Coppens to Secant Loci.
For any irreducible non-degenerate variety $X\subset \mathbb{P}^r$, we give a criterion for the $(k,s)$-identifiability of $X$. If $k\leq s-1 <r$, then the $(k,s)$-identifiability holds for $X$ if and only if the $s$-identifiability holds for the Segre product $Seg(\mathbb{P}^k\times X)$. Moreover, if the $s$-th secant variety of $X$ is not defective and it does not fill the ambient space, then we can produce a family of pairs $(k,s)$ for which the $(k,s)$-identifiability holds for $X$.
Let $X\subset \mathbb{P}^r$ be an integral and non-degenerate variety. Set $n:= \dim (X)$. We prove that if the $(k+n-1)$-secant variety of $X$ has (the expected) dimension $(k+n-1)(n+1)-1<r$ and $X$ is not uniruled by lines, then $X$ is not $k$-weakly defective and hence the $k$-secant variety satisfies identifiability, i.e. a general element of it is in the linear span of a unique $S\subset X$ with $\sharp (S) =k$. We apply this result to many Segre-Veronese varieties and to the identifiability of Gaussian mixtures $G_{1,d}$. If $X$ is the Segre embedding of a multiprojective space we prove …
We formulate, and in some cases prove, three statements concerning the purity or, more generally the naturality of the resolution of various rings one can attach to a generic curve of genus g and a torsion point of order l in its Jacobian. These statements can be viewed an analogues of Green's Conjecture and we verify them computationally for bounded genus. We then compute the cohomology class of the corresponding non-vanishing locus in the moduli space R_{g,l} of twisted level l curves of genus g and use this to derive results about the birational geometry of R_{g, l}. For instance, we prove …
The purpose of this paper is to relate the variety parameterizing completely decomposable homogeneous polynomials of degree $d$ in $n+1$ variables on an algebraically closed field, called $\Split_{d}(\PP n)$, with the Grassmannian of $n-1$ dimensional projective subspaces of $\PP {n+d-1}$. We compute the dimension of some secant varieties to $\Split_{d}(\PP n)$ and find a counterexample to a conjecture that wanted its dimension related to the one of the secant variety to $\GG (n-1, n+d-1)$. Moreover by using an invariant embedding of the Veronse variety into the Plücker space, then we are able…
In this paper, we show that the secant variety to a smooth projective variety embedded by a sufficiently positive line bundle is normal. As an application, we deduce that the secant variety to a general canonical curve of genus at least 7 is normal.
We study the secant line variety of the Segre product of projective spaces using special cumulant coordinates adapted for secant varieties. We show that the secant variety is covered by open normal toric varieties. We prove that in cumulant coordinates its ideal is generated by binomial quadrics. We present new results on the local structure of the secant variety. In particular, we show that it has rational singularities and we give a description of the singular locus. We also classify all secant varieties that are Gorenstein. Moreover, generalizing (Sturmfels and Zwiernik 2012), we obtain ana…
Every Grassmannian, in its Plücker embedding, is defined by quadratic polynomials. We prove a vast, qualitative, generalisation of this fact to what we call Plücker varieties. A Plücker variety is in fact a family of varieties in exterior powers of vector spaces that, like the Grassmannian, is functorial in the vector space and behaves well under duals. A special case of our result says that for each fixed natural number k, the k-th secant variety of any Plücker-embedded Grassmannian is defined in bounded degree independent of the Grassmannian. Our approach is to take the limit of a Plücker va…
Cactus varieties are a generalization of secant varieties. They are defined using linear spans of arbitrary finite schemes of bounded length, while secant varieties use only isolated reduced points. In particular, any secant variety is always contained in the respective cactus variety, and, except in a few initial cases, the inclusion is strict. It is known that lots of natural criteria that test membership in secant varieties are actually only tests for membership in cactus varieties. In this article, we propose the first techniques to distinguish actual secant variety from the cactus variety…
Motivated by the study of the secant variety of the Segre-Veronese variety we propose a general framework to analyze properties of the secant varieties of toric embeddings of affine spaces defined by simplicial complexes. We prove that every such secant is toric, which gives a way to use combinatorial tools to study singularities. We focus on the Segre-Veronese variety for which we completely classify their secants that give Gorenstein or $\mathbb Q$-Gorenstein varieties. We conclude providing the explicit description of the singular locus.
Let $λ=[d_1,\dots,d_r]$ be a partition of $d$. Consider the variety $\mathbb{X}_{2,λ} \subset \mathbb{P}^N$, $N={d+2 \choose 2}-1$, parameterizing forms $F\in k[x_0,x_1,x_2]_d$ which are the product of $r\geq 2$ forms $F_1,\dots,F_r$, with deg$F_i = d_i$. We study the secant line variety $σ_2(\mathbb{X}_{2,λ})$, and we determine, for all $r$ and $d$, whether or not such a secant variety is defective. Defectivity occurs in infinitely many "unbalanced" cases.
Asymptotic syzygies of a normal crossing variety follow the same vanishing behavior as one of its smooth components, unless there is a cohomological obstruction arising from how the smooth components intersect each other. In that case, we compute the asymptotic syzygies in terms of the cohomology of the simplicial complex associated to the normal crossing variety. We combine our results on normal crossing varieties with knowledge of degenerations of certain smooth projective varieties to obtain some results on asymptotic syzygies of those smooth projective varieties.
Take a smooth, connected and non-degenerate projective curve $X\subset \mathbb {P}^r$, $r\ge 2b+2\ge 6$, defined over an algebraically closed field with characteristic $0$ and let $σ_b(X)$ be the $b$-secant variety of $X$. We prove that the $X$-rank of $q$ is at least $b+1$ for a non-empty codimension $1$ locally closed subset of $σ_b(X)$.
We describe a computational proof that the fifth secant variety of the Segre product of five copies of the projective line is a codimension 2 complete intersection of equations of degree 6 and 16. Our computations rely on pseudo-randomness, and numerical accuracy, so parts of our proof are only valid "with high probability".