We study the behaviour of rational curves tangent to a hypersurface under degenerations of the hypersurface. Working within the framework of logarithmic Gromov-Witten theory, we extend the degeneration formula to the logarithmically singular setting, producing a virtual class on the space of maps to the degenerate fibre. We then employ logarithmic deformation theory to express this class as an obstruction bundle integral over the moduli space of ordinary stable maps. This produces new refinements of the logarithmic Gromov-Witten invariants, encoding the degeneration behaviour of tangent curves. In the example of a smooth plane cubic degenerating to the toric boundary we employ localisation and tropical techniques to compute these refinements. Finally, we leverage these calculations to describe how embedded curves tangent to a smooth cubic degenerate as the cubic does; the results obtained are of a classical nature, but the proofs make essential use of logarithmic Gromov-Witten theory.
We introduce an algebraic method for describing the Hodge filtration of degenerating hypersurfaces in projective toric varieties. For this purpose, we show some fundamental properties of logarithmic differential forms on proper equivariant morphisms of toric varieties.
We study rational curves on general Fano hypersurfaces in projective space, mostly by degenerating the hypersurface along with its ambient projective space to reducible varieties. We prove results on existence of low-degree rational curves with balanced normal bundle, and reprove some results on irreducibility of spaces of rational curves of low degree.
We compute explicitly the limits of tangents of a quasi-ordinary singularity in terms of its special monomials. We show that the set of limits of tangents of Y is essentially a topological invariant of Y .
For a hypersurface in a projective space, we consider the set of pairs of a point and a line in the projective space such that the line intersects the hypersurface at the point with a fixed multiplicity. We prove that this set of pairs forms a smooth variety for a general hypersurface.
We study spaces of lines that meet a smooth hypersurface X in P^n to high order. As an application, we give a polynomial upper bound on the number of planes contained in a smooth degree d hypersurface in P^5 and provide a proof of a result of Landsberg without using moving frames.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the geometric properties of real hypersurfaces of D'Angelo infinite type in ${\mathbb C}^n$. In order to understand the situation of flatness of these hypersurfaces, it is natural to ask whether there exists a nonconstant holomorphic curve tangent to a given hypersurface to infinite order. A sufficient condition for this existence is given by using Newton polyhedra,which is an important concept in singularity theory. More precisely,equivalence conditions are given in the case of some model hypersurfaces.
We give a generalization of an algebraic formula of Gomez-Mont for the index of a vector field with isolated zero in (C^n,0) and tangent to an isolated hypersurface singularity. We only assume that the vector field has an isolated zero on the singularity.
We characterize embedded $\C^1$ hypersurfaces of $\R^n$ as the only locally closed sets with continuously varying flat tangent cones whose measure-theoretic-multiplicity is at most $m<3/2$. It follows then that any (topological) hypersurface which has flat tangent cones and is supported everywhere by balls of uniform radius is $\C^1$. In the real analytic case the same conclusion holds under the weakened hypothesis that each tangent cone be a hypersurface. In particular, any convex real analytic hypersurface $X\subset\R^n$ is $\C^1$. Furthermore, if $X$ is real algebraic, strictly convex, and …
We show that the possible drop in multiplicity in an analytic family $F(z,t)$ of complex analytic hypersurface singularities with constant Milnor number is controlled by the powers of $t$. We prove equimultiplicity of $μ$-constant families of the form $f + tg + t^2h$ if the singular set of the tangent cone of $\{f = 0}$ is not contained in the tangent cone of $\{h = 0}$.
We investigate the problem of the number of flats simultaneously tangent to several convex hypersurfaces in real projective space from a random point of view. More precisely, we say that smooth convex hypersurfaces $X_1, \ldots, X_{d_{k,n}}\subset \mathbb{R}\textrm{P}^n$, where $d_{k,n}=(k+1)(n-k)$, are in random position if each one of them is randomly translated by elements $g_1, \ldots, g_{d_{k,n}}$ sampled independently and uniformly from the Orthogonal group; we denote by $τ_k(X_1, \ldots, X_{d_{k,n}})$ the average number of $k$-dimensional projective subspaces (flats) which are simultane…
In order to count the number of smooth cubic hypersurfaces tangent to a prescribed number of lines and passing through a given number of points, we construct a compactification of their moduli space. We term the latter a $1$--\textit{complete variety of cubic hypersurfaces} in analogy to the space of complete quadrics. Paolo Aluffi explored the case of plane cubic curves. Starting from his work, we construct such a space in arbitrary dimension by a sequence of five blow-ups. The counting problem is then reduced to the computation of five Chern classes, climbing the sequence of blow-ups. Comput…
We prove stability of logarithmic tangent sheaves of singular hypersurfaces D of the projective space with constraints on the dimension and degree of the singularities of D. As main application, we prove that determinants and symmetric determinants have stable logarithmic tangent sheaves and we describe an open dense piece of the associated moduli space.
Let D = {D_{1},...,D_{l}} be an arrangement of smooth hypersurfaces with normal crossings on the complex projective space P^n and let Ω^{1}_{P^n}(log D) be the logarithmic bundle attached to it. Following [1], we show that Ω^{1}_{P^n}(log D) admits a resolution of lenght 1 which explicitly depends on the degrees and on the equations of D_{1},...,D_{l}. Then we prove a Torelli type theorem when all the D_{i}'s have the same degree d and l >= {{n+d} \choose {d}}+3: indeed, we recover the components of D as unstable smooth hypersurfaces of Ω^{1}_{P^n}(log D). Finally we analyze the cases of one q…
We consider the tropicalization of tangent lines to a complete intersection curve $X$ in $\mathbb{P}^n$. Under mild hypotheses, we describe a procedure for computing the tropicalization of the image of the Gauss map of $X$ in terms of the tropicalizations of the hypersurfaces cutting out $X$. We apply this to obtain descriptions of the tropicalization of the dual variety $X^*$ and tangential variety $τ(X)$ of $X$. In particular, we are able to compute the degrees of $X^*$ and $τ(X)$ and the Newton polytope of $τ(X)$ without using any elimination theory.
We formulate the equivalence problem, in the sense of E. Cartan, for families of minimal rational curves on uniruled projective manifolds. An important invariant of this equivalence problem is the variety of minimal rational tangents. We study the case when varieties of minimal rational tangents at general points form an isotrivial family. The main question in this case is for which projective variety $Z$, a family of minimal rational curves with $Z$-isotrivial varieties of minimal rational tangents is locally equivalent to the flat model. We show that this is the case when $Z$ satisfies certa…
Let $X$ be a smooth cubic hypersurface of dimension $n \ge 1$ over the rationals. It is well-known that new rational points may be obtained from old ones by secant and tangent constructions. In view of the Mordell--Weil theorem for $n=1$, Manin (1968) asked if there exists a finite set $S$ from which all other rational points can be thus obtained. We give an affirmative answer for $n \ge 48$, showing in fact that we can take the generating set $S$ to consist of just one point. Our proof makes use of a weak approximation theorem due to Skinner, a theorem of Browning, Dietmann and Heath-Brown on…
