For smooth projective curves the Clifford index is an important invariant which provides a bound for the dimension of the space of sections of a line bundle. This is the first step in distinguishing curves of the same genus. In this paper we generalise this to introduce Clifford indices for semistable vector bundles on curves. We study these invariants, giving some basic properties and carrying out some computations for small ranks and for general and some special curves. For curves whose classical Clifford index is two, we compute all values of our new Clifford indices.
Clifford indices for semistable vector bundles on a smooth projective curve of genus at least 4 were defined in previous papers of the authors. In the present paper, we establish lower bounds for the Clifford indices for rank 3 bundles. As a consequence we show that, on smooth plane curves of degree at least 10, there exist non-generated bundles of rank 3 computing one of the Clifford indices.
Clifford indices for semistable vector bundles on a smooth projective curve of genus at least 4 were defined in a previous paper of the authors. The present paper studies bundles which compute these Clifford indices. We show that under certain conditions on the curve all such bundles and their Serre duals are generated.
Clifford indices of vector bundles on algebraic curves were introduced in a previous paper of the authors. In this paper we study bundles of rank 2 which compute these Clifford indices. This is of particular interest in the light of recently discovered counterexamples to a conjecture of Mercat.
Let $C$ be a smooth irreducible projective algebraic curve defined over the complex numbers. The notion of the Clifford index of $C$ was extended a few years ago to semistable bundles of any rank. Recent work has been focussed mainly on the rank-2 Clifford index, although interesting results have also been obtained for the case of rank 3. In this paper we extend this work, obtaining improved lower bounds for the rank-3 Clifford index. This allows the first computations of the rank-3 index in non-trivial cases and examples for which the rank-3 index is greater than the rank-2 index.
Let $(X,H)$ be a polarized K3 surface with $\mathrm{Pic}(X) = \mathbb Z H$, and let $C\in |H|$ be a smooth curve of genus $g$. We give an upper bound on the dimension of global sections of a semistable vector bundle on $C$. This allows us to compute the higher rank Clifford indices of $C$ with high genus. In particular, when $g\geq r^2\geq 4$, the rank $r$ Clifford index of $C$ can be computed by the restriction of Lazarsfeld-Mukai bundles on $X$ corresponding to line bundles on the curve $C$. This is a generalization of the result by Green and Lazarsfeld for curves on K3 surfaces to higher ra…
In this paper, we remove a technical hypothesis from a previous paper. This allows us to construct stable bundles of rank 2 with Clifford index significantly smaller than the classical Clifford index on suitably chosen curves of any genus $\ge13$.
Two definitions of the Clifford index for vector bundles on a smooth projective curve $C$ of genus $g\ge4$ were introduced in a previous paper by the authors. In another paper the authors obtained results on one of these indices for bundles of rank 3. In this paper we extend these results in the case where $C$ has classical Clifford index 3. In particular we prove Mercat's conjecture for bundles of rank 3 for $g \leq 8$ and $g \geq 13$ when $C$ has classical Clifford index 3. We obtain complete results in the case of genus 7.
Let $X$ be a smooth projective K3 surface over complex numbers and $C$ be an ample curve on $X$. In this paper we will study the semistability of the Lazarsfeld-Mukai bundle $E_{C, A}$ associated to a line bundle $A$ ion $C$ such that $|A|$ is a pencil on $C$ and computes the Clifford index of $C$. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for $E_{C, A}$ being semistable.
In this paper we obtain bounds on $h^0(E)$ where $E$ is a semistable bundle of rank 3 over a smooth irreducible projective curve $X$ of genus $g \geq 2$ defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0. These bounds are expressed in terms of the degrees of stability $s_1(E), s_2(E)$. We show also that in some cases the bounds are best possible. These results extend recent work of J. Cilleruelo and I. Sols for bundles of rank 2.
We discuss natural connections between three objects: quadratic forms with values in line bundles, conic bundles and quaternion orders. We use the even Clifford algebra, and the Brauer-Severi Variety, and other constructions to give natural bijections between these objects under appropriate hypothesis. We then restrict to a surface base and we express the second Chern class of the order in terms $K^3$ and other invariants of the corresponding conic bundle. We find the conic bundles corresponding to minimal del Pezzo quaterion orders and we discuss problems concerning their moduli.
It has been a long-standing problem to find an adequate definition of a Clifford index for higher rank vector bundles on curves, which should capture the complexity of the curve in its moduli space. An interesting proposal in rank 2 has been put forward by Mercat, who conjectured that the second Clifford index of a curve should be equal to its classical Clifford index, defined in terms of gonality. Using moduli of sheaves on generic K3 surfaces, we prove Mercat's conjecture for generic curves of every genus. Furthermore, for odd g we identify an effective divisor in the moduli space M_g along …
Let $X$ be a semistable curve and $L$ a line bundle whose multidegree is uniform, i.e., in the range between those of the structure sheaf and the dualizing sheaf of $X$. We establish an upper bound for $h^0(X,L)$, which generalizes the classic Clifford inequality for smooth curves. The bound depends on the total degree of $L$ and connectivity properties of the dual graph of $X$. It is sharp, in the sense that on any semistable curve there exist line bundles with uniform multidegree that achieve the bound.
This is the author's 2008 thesis from the University of Chicago. We generalize the notion of the Clifford index to an arbitrary very ample line bundle and show how it determines when a curve and its various secant varieties have determinantal equations. In particular we establish the scheme theoretic version of a conjecture of Eisenbud-Koh-Stillman. If $L_1$ and $L_2$ are line bundles of degree at least $2g+1+k$, then ${\rm Sec}^j(C)$ is determinantally presented for $j \leq k$ and for $j \leq k+1$ if $L_1 \neq L_2$. We also give a geometric characterization of the standard Clifford index in t…
We give a sharp lower bound for the selfintersection of a nef line bundle $L$ on an irregular variety $X$ in terms of its continuous global sections and the Albanese dimension of $X$, which we call the Generalized Clifford-Severi inequality. We also extend the result to nef vector bundles and give a slope inequality for fibred irregular varieties. As a byproduct we obtain a lower bound for the volume of irregular varieties; when $X$ is of maximal Albanese dimension the bound is $Vol(X) \geq 2 n! χω_X$ and it is sharp.
In this article, we provide an overview of a one-to-one correspondence between representations of the generalized Clifford algebra $C_f$ of a ternary cubic form $f$ and certain vector bundles (called Ulrich bundles) on a cubic surface $X$. We study general properties of Ulrich bundles, and using a recent classification of Casanellas and Hartshorne, deduce the existence of irreducible representations of $C_f$ of every possible dimension.
We extend the results of Pareschi on the constancy of the gonality and Clifford index of smooth curves in a complete linear system on Del Pezzo surfaces of degrees $\geq 2$ to the case of Del Pezzo surfaces of degree 1, where we explicitly classify the cases where the gonality and Clifford index are not constant. We also classify all cases of exceptional curves on Del Pezzo surfaces, which turn out to be the smooth plane curves and some other cases with Clifford dimension 3. Moreover, the property of being exceptional holds for all curves in the complete linear system. Furthermore, we relate t…
Let S be a K3 surface and assume for simplicity that it does not contain any (-2)-curve. Using coherent systems, we express every non-simple Lazarsfeld-Mukai bundle on S as an extension of two sheaves of some special type, that we refer to as generalized Lazarsfeld-Mukai bundles. This has interesting consequences concerning the Brill-Noether theory of curves C lying on S. From now on, let g denote the genus of C and A be a complete linear series of type g^r_d on C such that d<= g-1 and the corresponding Brill-Noether number is negative. First, we focus on the cases where A computes the Cliffor…
Merkurjev's theorem--the statement that the 2-torsion of the Brauer group is represented by Clifford algebras of quadratic forms--is in general false when the base is no longer a field. The work of Parimala, Scharlau, and Sridharan proves the existence of smooth complete curves over local fields, over which Merkurjev's theorem is equivalent to the existence of a rational theta characteristic. Here, we prove that for smooth curves over a local field or surfaces over a finite field, replacing the Witt group by the total Witt group of all line bundle-valued quadratic forms recovers Merkurjev's th…
Green's conjecture is proved for smooth curves C lying on a rational surface S with an anticanonical pencil, under some mild hypotheses on the line bundle L defined by C. Constancy of Clifford dimension, Clifford index and gonality of curves in the linear system |L| is also obtained.
We prove two results. First, we establish that the normal bundle of any smooth curve of genus 7 having maximal Clifford index is stable. Note that 7 is the smallest genus for which such a result could possibly hold. We then show that rank four Lazarsfeld-Mukai vector bundles on a curve that lies on a general K3 surface are stable. Both results have consequences for Mercat's conjecture on higher rank vector bundles on generic curves.
In this note we use an example of Mukai to construct semistable bundles of rank 3 with 6 independent sections on a curve of genus 9 or 11 with Clifford index strictly less than the Clifford index of the curve. The example also allows us to show the non-emptiness of some Brill-Noether loci with negative expected dimension.
We give the classification of globally generated vector bundles of rank $2$ on a smooth quadric surface with $c_1\le (2,2)$ in terms of the indices of the bundles, and extend the result to arbitrary higher rank case. We also investigate their indecomposability and give the sufficient and necessary condition on numeric data of vector bundles for indecomposability.
Let C be a smooth projective curve with genus g>1 and Clifford index c(C) and let L be a line bundle on C generated by its global sections. The morphism i:C -->P(H^0(L))=P is well-defined and i*T is the restriction to C of the tangent bundle T of the projective space P. Sharpening a theorem by Paranjape, we show that if deg L>2g-c(C)-1 then i*T is semi-stable, specifying when it is also stable. We then prove the existence on many curves of a line bundle L of degree 2g-c(C)-1 such that i*T is not semi-stable. Finally, we completely characterize the (semi-)stability of i*T when C is hyperellipti…
This paper contains results on stable bundles of rank 2 with space of sections of dimension 4 on a smooth irreducible projective algebraic curve $C$. There is a known lower bound on the degree for the existence of such bundles; the main result of the paper is a geometric criterion for this bound to be attained. For a general curve $C$ of genus 10, we show that the bound cannot be attained, but that there exist Petri curves of this genus for which the bound is sharp. We interpret the main results for various curves and in terms of Clifford indices and coherent systems.
In a remark to Green's conjecture, Paranjape and Ramanan analyzed the vector bundle $E$ which is the pullback by the canonical map of the universal quotient bundle $T_{\Pp^{g-1}}(-1)$ on $\Pp^{g-1}$ and stated a more general conjecture and proved it for the curves with Clifford Index $1$ (trigonal and plane quintic). In this paper, we state the conjecture for general linear systems and obtain the results for the case of hyperelliptic curves.
Given a nondegenerate ternary form $f=f(x_1,x_2,x_3)$ of degree 4 over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, we use the geometry of K3 surfaces and van den Bergh's correspondence between representations of the generalized Clifford algebra $C_f$ associated to $f$ and Ulrich bundles on the surface $X_f:=\{w^{4}=f(x_1,x_2,x_3)\} \subseteq \mathbb{P}^3$ to construct a positive-dimensional family of irreducible representations of $C_f.$ The main part of our construction, which is of independent interest, uses recent work of Aprodu-Farkas on Green's Conjecture together with a result …
The dimension of spaces of global sections for line bundles on semistable curves parametrized by the compactified Picard scheme is studied. The theorem of Riemann is shown to hold. The theorem of Clifford is shown to hold in the following cases: the curve has two components; the curve is any semistable curve and the degree is either 0 or 2g-2; the curve is stable, free from separating nodes, and the degree is at most 4. These results are all shown to be sharp. Applications to the Clifford index, to the combinatorial description of hyperelliptic curves, and to plane quintics are given.
In this paper we give top most and least indices of non vanishing cohomology modules of line bundles in the Kac Moody setting in terms of Weyl group combinatorics. We also prove a surjection Theorem.
We give sharp bounds on the vanishing of the cohomology of a tensor product of vector bundles on the n-dimensional projective space in terms of the vanishing of the cohomology of the factors. For this purpose we introduce regularity indices generalizing the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity. As an application we give a sufficient condition for a vector bundle to have an unobstructed deformation theory that depends only on the cohomology table of the bundle. We construct complete families of bundles with such cohomology tables.
In this paper, we study generalized line bundles over $C_n$, a primitive multiple curve of arbitrary multiplicity $n$, where $n$ is a positive integer. In particular, we give a structure theorem for them and we characterize their semistability in terms of $n-1$ integral invariants, the indices. These results are used to describe the irreducible components that contain stable generalized line bundles in the Simpson moduli space of semistable sheaves of generalized rank $n$ and fixed generalized degree on $C_n$. We compute also the dimension of the Zariski tangent space to this moduli space in a…
We study the projective models of complex K3 surfaces polarized by a line bundle L such that all smooth curves in |L| have non-general Clifford index. Such models are in a natural way contained in rational normal scrolls. We use this study to classify and describe all projective models of K3 surfaces of genus at most 10.
In our previous paper we have elaborated a certain signed count of real lines on real projective n-dimensional hypersurfaces of degree 2n-1. Contrary to the honest "cardinal" count, it is independent of the choice of a hypersurface, and by this reason provides a strong lower bound on the honest count. In this count the contribution of a line is its local input to the Euler number of a certain auxiliary vector bundle. The aim of this paper is to present other, in a sense more geometric, interpretations of this local input. One of them results from a generalization of Segre species of real lines…
An Ulrich sheaf on an n-dimensional projective variety X, embedded in a projective space, is a normalized ACM sheaf which has the maximum possible number of global sections. Using a construction based on the representation theory of Roby-Clifford algebras, we prove that every normal ACM variety admits a reflexive sheaf whose restriction to a general 1-dimensional linear section is Ulrich; we call such sheaves delta-Ulrich. In the case n=2, where delta-Ulrich sheaves satisfy the property that their direct image under a general finite linear projection is a semistable instanton bundle, we show t…
A ribbon is a double structure on P^1. The geometry of a ribbon is closely related to that of a smooth curve. In this note we consider linear series on ribbons. Our main result is an explicit determinantal description for the locus W^{r}_{2n} of degree 2n line bundles with at least (r+1)-dimensional sections on a ribbon. We also discuss some results of Clifford and Brill-Noether type.
