Ein, Niu and Park showed in [ENP20] that if the degree of the line bundle $L$ on a curve of genus $g$ is at least $2g+2k+1$, the $k$-th secant variety of the curve via the embedding defined by the complete linear system of $L$ is normal, projectively normal and arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay, and they also proved some vanishing of the Betti diagrams. However, the length of the linear strand of weight $k+1$ of the resolution of the secant variety $Σ_k$ of a curve of $g\geq2$ is still mysterious. In this paper we calculate the complete Betti diagrams of the secant varieties of curves of genus $2$ using Boij-Söderberg theory. The main idea is to find the pure diagrams that contribute to the Betti diagram of the secant variety via calculating some special positions of the Betti diagram.
We show that the linear syzygy spaces of elliptic normal curves, their secant varieties and of bielliptic canonical curves are spanned by geometric syzygies.
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 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 $L=K_C$.
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.
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.
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 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.
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…
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 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 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…
In this thesis we give a complete description of the syzygies of irreducible, nonsingular, canoncial curves $C$ of genus 9. This includes a collection of all possible Betti tables for $C$. Moreover a direct correspondence between these Betti tables and the number and types of special linear series on $C$ is given. Especially for $\operatorname{Cliff}(C)=3$ the curve $C$ is contained in determinantal surface $Y$ on a 4-dimensional rational normal scroll $X\subset \mathbb{P}^8$ constructed from a base point free pencil of divisors of degree 5.
We show that for $5$-gonal curves of odd genus $g\geq 13$ and even genus $g\geq 28$ the $\lceil \frac{g-1}{2}\rceil$-th syzygy module of the curve is not determined by the syzygies of the scroll swept out by the special pencil of degree $5$.
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.
A key result for syzygies of curves is Voisin's proof of Green's conjecture for the canonical embedding of a general curve of any genus. Her primary tools were the Lazarsfeld Mukai bundle on a K3 surface and a representation of Koszul cohomology on the Hilbert scheme of points on the surface. In this note we construct representations of the Koszul complex on Grassmann varieties; Voisin's setup arises as the inverse image of one of the maps. Using a different map, we give a substantially shorter proof of Voisin's result for K3 surfaces of even sectional genus.
We describe the spaces of minimal rank last syzygies for the Mukai Varieties of sectional genus 6,7 and 8. Based on this we show: 1. The first geometric syzygies of a general canonical curve of genus 6 form a non degenerate configuration of 5 lines in P^4. 2. The first geometric syzygies of a general canonical curve of genus 7 form a non degenerate, linearly normal, ruled surface of degree 84 on a spinor variety S in P^15. 3. The second geometric syzygies of a general canonical curve of genus 8 form a non degenerate configuration of 14 conics on a 2-uple embedded P^5 in P^20. This proves a nat…
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).
Based on a recent result of Voisin [2001] we describe the last nonzero syzygy space in the linear strand of a canonical curve C of even genus g=2k lying on a K3 surface, as the ambient space of a k-2-uple embedded P^{k+1}. Furthermore the geometric syzygies constructed by Green and Lazarsfeld [1984] from g^1_{k+1}'s form a non degenerate configuration of finitely many rational normal curves on this P^{k+1}. This proves a natural generalization of Green's conjecture [1984], namely that the geometric syzygies should span the space of all syzygies, in this case.
We define syzygy points of projective schemes, and introduce a program of studying their GIT stability. Then we describe two cases where we have managed to make some progress in this program, that of polarized K3 surfaces of odd genus, and of genus six canonical curves. Applications of our results include effectivity statements for divisor classes on the moduli space of odd genus K3 surfaces, and a new construction in the Hassett-Keel program for the moduli space of genus six curves.
Let $C$ be a trigonal curve of genus $g\ge 5$ and let $T$ be the unique trigonal line bundle inducing a map $π: C \stackrel{3:1}{\longrightarrow} \mathbb{P}^1$. This note provides a short and easy proof of the normal generation for the residual line bundle $K_C\otimes T^{-1}$ for curves of genus $g\ge 7$. Moreover, we compute the minimal free resolution of the embedded curve $C\subset \mathbb{P}(H^0(C,K_C\otimes T^{-n})^*)$ for the residual line bundle $K_C\otimes T^{-n}$ for $n\ge 1$ and $g \ge 3n+4$.
A theorem of Green says that a line bundle of degree at least $2g+1+p$ on a smooth curve $X$ of genus $g$ has property $N_p$. We prove a similar conclusion for certain singular, reducible curves $X$ under suitable degree bounds over all irreducible components of $X$.
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 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.
In 1967, Shioda \cite{Shi1} determined the ring of invariants of binary octavics and their syzygies using the symbolic method. We discover that the syzygies determined in \cite{Shi1} are incorrect. In this paper, we compute the correct equations among the invariants of the binary octavics and give necessary and sufficient conditions for two genus 3 hyperelliptic curves to be isomorphic over an algebraically closed field $k$, $\ch k \neq 2, 3, 5, 7$. For the first time, an explicit equation of the hyperelliptic moduli for genus 3 is computed in terms of absolute invariants.
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 …
We introduce the problem of GIT stability for syzygy points of canonical curves with a view toward a GIT construction of the canonical model of the moduli space of stable curves. As the first step in this direction, we prove semi-stability of the first syzygy point for a general canonical curve of odd genus.
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…
We apply a degenerate version of a result due to Hirschowitz, Ramanan and Voisin to verify Green and Green-Lazarsfeld conjectures over explicit open sets inside each $d$-gonal stratum of curves $X$ with $d<[g_X/2]+2$. By the same method, we verify the Green-Lazarsfeld conjecture for any curve of odd genus and maximal gonality. The proof invokes Voisin's solution to the generic Green conjecture as a key argument.
We relate the geometry of curves to the notion of hyperbolicity in real algebraic geometry. A hyperbolic variety is a real algebraic variety that (in particular) admits a real fibered morphism to a projective space whose dimension is equal to the dimension of the variety. We study hyperbolic varieties with a special interest in the case of hypersurfaces that admit a real algebraic ruling. The central part of the paper is concerned with secant varieties of real algebraic curves where the real locus has the maximal number of connected components, which is determined by the genus of the curve. Fo…
We obtain a complete description of the effective cone of $C_{g-2}$ when $C$ is a general curve of genus $g \geq 6,$ as well as a new bound in the case where $C$ is a smooth plane quintic. In addition, we obtain a new virtual bound for the effective cone of $C_{g-2m}$ which is a genuine bound when $m=2,$ and we also characterize certain natural divisors on $C_{g-2}$ as subordinate loci associated to adjunctions of kernel bundles.
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 …
We describe a systematic way of constructing effective divisors on the moduli space of stable curves of genus g having exceptionally small slope. We prove that any divisor on \bar{M}_g consisting of curves failing a certain Green-Lazarsfeld syzygy type condition, provides a counterexample to the Harris-Morrison Slope Conjecture. These divisors generalize our original isolated counterexample to the Slope Conjecture which was the divisor on M_{10} of curves lying on K3 surfaces. We also introduce a new stratification of M_g, somewhat similar to the classical stratification given by gonality, but…
In this paper we prove, using a refinement of Terracini's Lemma, a sharp lower bound for the degree of (higher) secant varieties to a given projective variety, which extends the well known lower bound for the degree of a variety in terms of its dimension and codimension in projective space. Moreover we study varieties for which the bound is attained proving some general properties related to tangential projections, e.g. these varieties are rational. In particular we completely classify surfaces (and curves) for which the bound is attained. It turns out that these surfaces enjoy some maximality…
We explore the concept of projections of syzygies and prove two new technical results; we firstly give a precise characterization of syzygy schemes in terms of their projections, secondly, we prove a converse to Aprodu's Projection Theorem. Applying these results, we prove that extremal syzygies of general curves of non-maximal gonality embedded by a linear system of sufficiently high degree arise from scrolls. Lastly, we prove Green's Conjecture for general covers of elliptic curves (of arbitrary degree) as well as proving a new result for curves of even genus and maximal gonality.
We show that the d-th secant variety of a projective curve of genus g imbedded in projective space by a complete linear system of degree 2g-2+m, with m at least 2d+3, does not contain linear spaces of dimension bigger than d-1, and that the only linear subspaces of dimension d-1 contained in it are the obvious ones.
For a smooth projective curve, the cycles of e-secant k-planes are among the most studied objects in classical enumerative geometry and there are well-known formulas due to Castelnuovo, Cayley and MacDonald concerning them. Despite various attempts, surprisingly little is known about the enumerative validity of such formulas. The aim of this paper is to completely clarify this problem in the case of the generic curve C of given genus. Using degeneration techniques and a few facts about the birational geometry of moduli spaces of stable pointed curves we determine precisely under which conditio…
This article is a generalisation of results of Ciliberto and Sernesi. For a general canonically embedded curve $C$ of genus $g\geq 5$, let $d\le g-1$ be an integer such that the Brill--Noether number $ρ(g,d,1)=g-2(g-d+1)\geq 1$. We study the family of $d$-secant $\mathbb{P}^{d-2}$'s to $C$ induced by the smooth locus of the Brill--Noether locus $W^1_d(C)$. Using the theory of foci and a structure theorem for the rank one locus of special $1$-generic matrices by Eisenbud and Harris, we prove a Torelli-type theorem for general curves by reconstructing the curve from its Brill--Noether loci $W^1_…
We apply the theory of Groebner bases to the computation of free resolutions over a polynomial ring, the defining equations of a canonically embedded curve, and the unirationality of the moduli space of curves of a fixed genus.
In this article we we continue the study of property $N_p$ of irrational ruled surfaces begun in \cite{ES}. Let $X$ be a ruled surface over a curve of genus $g \geq 1$ with a minimal section $C_0$ and the numerical invariant $e$. When $X$ is an elliptic ruled surface with $e = -1$, there is an elliptic curve $E \subset X$ such that $E \equiv 2C_0 -f$. And we prove that if $L \in {Pic}X$ is in the numerical class of $aC_0 +bf$ and satisfies property $N_p$, then $(C,L|_{C_0})$ and $(E,L|_E)$ satisfy property $N_p$ and hence $a+b \geq 3+p$ and $a+2b \geq 3+p$. This gives a proof of the relevant p…
