Let $X$ be a smooth projective surface over $\mathbb{C}$ and $D$ a big divisor with Zariski decomposition $D=P+N$. We study the relationship between the volume $\mathrm{vol}(D)=P^2$ and the dimension $h^0(D)$.
We introduce a numerical invariant $\mathfrak{C}(N)$ depending only on the negative part $N$, which provides a universal baseline control for $\mathrm{vol}(D)$. This allows us to establish Noether-type inequalities relating $\mathrm{vol}(D)$ and $h^0(D)$, where all correction terms are explicitly governed by $\mathfrak{C}(N)$.
Our results recover and unify several classical inequalities on surfaces, and apply in particular to adjoint divisors and foliations.
We further obtain lower bounds for $\mathrm{vol}(D)$ in terms of the ps-index $ι(D)$, with applications to foliated surfaces.
We extend results on generic strange duality for K3 surfaces by showing that the proposed isomorphism holds over an entire Noether-Lefschetz divisor in the moduli space of quasipolarized K3s. We interpret the statement globally as an isomorphism of sheaves over this divisor, and also describe the global construction over the space of polarized K3s.
Inside the projectivized $k$-th Hodge bundle, we construct a collection of divisors obtained by imposing vanishing at a Brill-Noether special point. We compute the classes of the closures of such divisors in two ways, using incidence geometry and restrictions to various families, including pencils of curves on K3 surfaces and pencils of Du Val curves. We also show the extremality and rigidity of the closure of the incidence divisor consisting of smooth pointed curves together with a canonical or 2-canonical divisor passing through the marked point.
We show that certain divisors of Brill-Noether and Gieseker-Petri type span extremal rays of the effective cone in the moduli space of stable genus one curves with $n$ ordered marked points. In particular, they are different from the infinitely many extremal rays found in \cite{ChenCoskun}.
We provide methods to construct explicit examples of $K3$ surfaces. This leads to unirational constructions of Noether--Lefschetz divisors inside the moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g$. We implement Mukai's unirationality construction of the moduli spaces of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g\in\{6,\dots, 10, 12\}$, and we also present a new constructive proof of the unirationality of the moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $11$. Furthermore, we show the existence of three unirational hypersurfaces in any moduli space of $K3$ surfaces of genus $g$.
For a projective variety X, a line bundle L on X and r a natural number we consider the r-th Brill-Noether locus W^r(L,X):={η\in Pic^0(X)|h^0(L+η)\geq r+1}: we describe its natural scheme structure and compute the Zariski tangent space. If X is a smooth surface of maximal Albanese dimension and C is a curve on X, we define a Brill-Noether number ρ(C, r) and we prove, under some mild additional assumptions, that if ρ(C, r) is non negative then W^r(C,X) is nonempty of dimension bigger or equal to ρ(C,r). As an application, we derive lower bounds for h^0(K_D) for a divisor D that moves linearly o…
In [1309.1899], Ranestad and Voisin showed, quite surprisingly, that the divisor in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds consisting of cubics "apolar to a Veronese surface" is not a Noether-Lefschetz divisor. We give an independent proof of this by exhibiting an explicit cubic fourfold X in the divisor and using point counting methods over finite fields to show X is Noether-Lefschetz general. We also show that two other divisors considered in [ibid.] are not Noether-Lefschetz divisors.
We develop a theory of Brill-Noether divisors on the moduli space of stable spin curves of genus g, and compute the classes of these loci. A spin Brill-Noether cycle is defined in terms of the relative position of the spin structure with respect to certain Raynaud theta-divisors in the Jacobian of the curve.
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 carry out a detailed intersection theoretic analysis of the Deligne-Mumford compactification of the divisor on M_{10} consisting of curves sitting on K3 surfaces. This divisor is not of classical Brill-Noether type, and is known to give a counterexample to the Slope Conjecture. The computation relies on the fact that this divisor has four different incarnations as a geometric subvariety of the moduli space of curves, one of them as a higher rank Brill-Noether divisor consisting of curves with an exceptional rank 2 vector bundle. As an application we describe the birational nature of the mod…
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…
We investigate the structure of geometrically ruled surfaces whose anti-canonical class is big. As an application we show that the Picard group of a normal projective surface whose anti-canonical class is nef and big is a free abelian group of finite rank.
We prove that every Hassett's Noether-Lefschetz divisor of special cubic fourfolds contains a union of three codimension-two subvarieties, parametrizing rational cubic fourfolds, in the moduli space of smooth cubic fourfolds.
We study lc pairs polarized by a nef and log big divisor. After proving the minimal model theory for projective lc pairs polarized by a nef and log big divisor, we prove the effectivity of the Iitaka fibrations and some boundedness results for dlt pairs polarized by a nef and log big divisor.
We discuss in this short note how basic facts about divisors on moduli spaces of pointed curves give a solution to the Brill-Noether problem of nonexistence of linear series with prescribed ramification at unassigned points.
Under some conditions on the deformation type, which we expect to be satisfied for arbitrary irreducible symplectic varieties, we describe which big and nef line bundles on irreducible symplectic varieties have base divisors. In particular, we show that such base divisors are always irreducible and reduced. This is applied to understand the behaviour of divisorial base components of big and nef line bundles under deformations and for K3$^{[n]}$-type and Kum$^n$-type.
We construct a space classifying divisor classes of a fixed degree on all tropical curves of a fixed combinatorial type and show that the function taking a divisor class to its rank is upper semicontinuous. We extend the definition of the Brill-Noether rank of a metric graph to tropical curves and use the upper semicontinuity of the rank function on divisors to show that the Brill-Noether rank varies upper semicontinuously in families of tropical curves. Furthermore, we present a specialization lemma relating the Brill-Noether rank of a tropical curve with the dimension of the Brill-Noether lo…
We study the birational geometry of $\bar{M}_{3,1}$ and $\bar{M}_{4,1}$. In particular, we pose a pointed analogue of the Slope Conjecture and prove it in these low-genus cases. Using variation of GIT, we construct birational contractions of these spaces in which certain divisors of interest -- the pointed Brill-Noether divisors -- are contracted. As a consequence, we see that these pointed Brill-Noether divisors generate extremal rays of the effective cones for these spaces.
Noether-Lefschetz divisors in the moduli of K3 surfaces are the loci corresponding to Picard rank at least 2. We relate the degrees of the Noether-Lefschetz divisors in 1-parameter families of K3 surfaces to the Gromov-Witten theory of the 3-fold total space. The reduced K3 theory and the Yau-Zaslow formula play an important role. We use results of Borcherds and Kudla-Millson for O(2,19) lattices to determine the Noether-Lefschetz degrees in classical families of K3 surfaces of degrees 2, 4, 6 and 8. For the quartic K3 surfaces, the Noether-Lefschetz degrees are proven to be the Fourier coeffi…
We completely classify redundant blow-ups appearing in the theory of rational surfaces with big anticanonical divisor due to Sakai. In particular, we construct a rational surface with big anticanonical divisor which is not a minimal resolution of a del Pezzo surface with only rational singularities, which gives a negative answer to a question raised in a paper by Testa, Várilly-Alvarado, and Velasco.
We approach non-divisorial base loci of big and nef line bundles on irreducible symplectic varieties. While for K3 surfaces, only divisorial base loci can occur, nothing was known about the behaviour of non-divisorial base loci for more general irreducible symplectic varieties. We determine the base loci of all big and nef line bundles on the Hilbert scheme of two points on very general K3 surfaces of genus two and on their birational models. Remarkably, we find an ample line bundle with a non-trivial base locus in codimension two. We deduce that, generically in the moduli spaces of polarized …
A Laurent polynomial $f$ in two variables naturally describes a projective curve $C(f)$ on a toric surface. We show that if $C(f)$ is a smooth curve of genus at least 7, then $C(f)$ is not Brill-Noether general. To accomplish this, we classify all Newton polygons that admit such curves whose divisors all have nonnegative Brill-Noether number.
The Noether-Lefschetz theorem asserts that any curve in a very general surface $X$ in $\mathbb P^3$ of degree $d \geq 4$ is a restriction of a surface in the ambient space, that is, the Picard number of $X$ is $1$. We proved previously that under some conditions, which replace the condition $d \geq 4$, a very general surface in a simplicial toric threefold $\mathbb P_Σ$ (with orbifold singularities) has the same Picard number as $\mathbb P_Σ$. Here we define the Noether-Lefschetz loci of quasi-smooth surfaces in $\mathbb P_Σ$ in a linear system of a Cartier ample divisor with respect to a (-1)…
The purpose of this paper is to study the slices of the Okounkov bodies of Mori dream spaces. First, we analyze all the slices of the Okounkov bodies of big divisors on Mori dream spaces associated to some admissible flags. As a byproduct, we obtain their descriptions on Mori dream threefolds. Finally, we consider its application to the rational polyhedrality of them.
In an influential 2008 paper, Baker proposed a number of conjectures relating the divisor theory of algebraic curves with an analogous combinatorial theory on finite graphs. In this note, we examine Baker's Brill--Noether existence conjecture for special divisors. For $g\leq 5$ and $ρ(g,r,d)$ non-negative, every graph of genus $g$ is shown to admit a divisor of rank $r$ and degree at most $d$. Moreover, the conjecture is shown to hold in rank $1$ for a number of families of highly connected combinatorial types of graphs of arbitrarily high genus. In the relevant genera, our arguments give the …
We show that a nef and big line bundle whose adjoint bundle has non-zero global sections on a nonsingular toric weak Fano 3-fold is normally generated. As a consequence, we see that all ample line bundles on a nonsingular toric weak Fano 3-fold are normally generated. We also show that an ample line bundle whose adjoint bundle has non-zero global sections on a Gorensein toric Fano 3-fold is normally generated. In our proof we do not use full classifications of Fano polytopes.
We show that a cubic fourfold F that is apolar to a Veronese surface has the property that its variety of power sums VSP(F,10) is singular along a K3 surface of genus 20. We prove that these cubics form a divisor in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds and that this divisor is not a Noether-Lefschetz divisor. We use this result to prove that there is no nontrivial Hodge correspondence between a very general cubic and its VSP.
Let U(r) be the moduli space of rank r vector bundles with trivial determinant on a smooth curve of genus 2. The map theta_r: U(r) -> |r Theta|, which associates to a general bundle its theta divisor, is generically finite. In this paper we give a geometric interpretation of the generic fibre of theta_r.
If $X$ is a smooth complex projective 3-fold with ample canonical divisor $K$, then the inequality $K^3\ge {2/3}(2p_g-7)$ holds, where $p_g$ denotes the geometric genus. This inequality is nearly sharp. We also give similar, but more complicated, inequalities for general minimal 3-folds of general type. (A noether type of inequality lies, by all means, on the other side of the Miyaoka-Yau inequality from the geographical point of view.)
We show that the Okounkov body of a big divisor with finitely generated section ring is a rational simplex, for an appropriate choice of flag; furthermore, when the ambient variety is a surface, the same holds for every big divisor. Under somewhat more restrictive hypotheses, we also show that the corresponding semigroup is finitely generated.
We give conditions characterizing equality in the Minkowski inequality for big divisors on a projective variety. Our results draw on the extensive history of research on Minkowski inequalities in algebraic geometry.
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…
An Okounkov body is a convex subset in Euclidean space associated to a big divisor on a smooth projective variety with respect to an admissible flag. In this paper, we introduce two convex bodies associated to pseudoeffective divisors, called the valuative Okounkov bodies and the limiting Okounkov bodies, and show that these convex bodies reflect the asymptotic properties of pseudoeffective divisors as in the case with big divisors. Our results extend the works of Lazarsfeld-Mustaţă and Kaveh-Khovanskii. For this purpose, we define and study special subvarieties, called the Nakayama subvarieti…
We describe the effective and the big cones of a projective symmetric variety. Moreover, we give a necessary and sufficient combinatorial criterion for the bigness of a nef divisor on a projective symmetric variety. When the variety is toroidal and the divisor is $G$-stable, such criterion has an explicit geometric interpretation. Finally, we describe the spherical closure of a symmetric subgroup.
We study the Brill-Noether theory of curves on K3 surfaces that are Hodge theoretically associated to cubic fourfolds of discriminant 14. We prove that any smooth curve in the polarization class has maximal Clifford index and deduce that a cubic fourfold contains disjoint planes if and only if it admits a Brill-Noether special associated K3 surface of degree 14. As an application, the complement of the pfaffian locus, inside the Noether-Lefschetz divisor of discriminant 14 in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds, is contained in the irreducible locus of cubic fourfolds containing two disjoint p…
Rational curves on Hilbert schemes of points on $K3$ surfaces and generalised Kummer manifolds are constructed by using Brill-Noether theory on nodal curves on the underlying surface. It turns out that all wall divisors can be obtained, up to isometry, as dual divisors to such rational curves. The locus covered by the rational curves is then described, thus exhibiting algebraically coisotropic subvarieties that deform to general small deformations of the manifold. This provides strong evidence for a conjecture by Voisin concerning the Chow ring of irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifolds. …
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…
For a minimal $3$-fold $X$ with $K_X\equiv 0$ and a nef and big Weil divisor $L$ on $X$, we investigate the birational geometry inspired by $L$. We prove that $|mL|$ and $|K_X+mL|$ give birational maps for all $m\geq 17$. The result remains true under weaker assumption that $L$ is big and has no stable base components.
We reduce the Abundance Conjecture in dimension 4 to the following numerical statement: if the canonical divisor K is nef and has maximal nef dimension, then K is big. From this point of view, we ``classify'' in dimension 2 nef divisors which have maximal nef dimension, but which are not big.
The original Fujita approximation theorem states that the volume of a big divisor $D$ on a projective variety $X$ can always be approximated arbitrarily closely by the self-intersection number of an ample divisor on a birational modification of $X$. One can also formulate it in terms of graded linear series as follows: let $W_{\bullet} = \{W_k \}$ be the complete graded linear series associated to a big divisor $D$: \[ W_k = H^0\big(X,\mathcal{O}_X(kD)\big). \] For each fixed positive integer $p$, define $W^{(p)}_{\bullet}$ to be the graded linear subseries of $W_{\bullet}$ generated by $W_p$:…
If D is a big divisor and E is an effective divisor, then vol(D-E)<=vol(D)<=vol(D+E). We discuss when each inequality is an equality. Surprisingly, the answer is that the asymptotic equality vol(D-E)=vol(D) is equivalent to the equality of the Hilbert functions of D-E and D. The analogous result holds when vol(D)=vol(D+E).
This paper is an enhancement of the previous note "Explicit computations of Zariski decompositions on P_Z^1". In this paper, we observe several properties of a certain kind of an arithmetic divisor D on the n-dimensional projective space over Z and give the exact form of the Zariski decomposition of D on the projective line over Z. Further, we show that, if n>=2 and D is big and non-nef, then, for any birational morphism f: X --> P^n_Z of projective, generically smooth and normal arithmetic varieties, we can not expect a suitable Zariski decomposition of f^*(D). We also give a concrete constru…
Let $X$ be a complete algebraic variety over {\bf C}. We consider a log variety $(X,Δ)$ that is weakly Kawamata log terminal. We assume that $K_X+Δ$ is a {\bf Q}-Cartier {\bf Q}-divisor and that every irreducible component of $\lfloor Δ\rfloor$ is {\bf Q}-Cartier. A nef and big Cartier divisor $H$ on $X$ is called {\it nef and log big} on $(X,Δ)$ if $H |_B$ is nef and big for every center $B$ of non-"Kawamata log terminal" singularities for $(X,Δ)$. We prove that, if $L$ is a nef Cartier divisor such that $aL-(K_X+Δ)$ is nef and log big on $(X,Δ)$ for some $a \in$ {\bf N}, then the complete li…
In this paper, we introduce positivity notions for pairs of adelic R-Cartier divisors and R-base conditions, and study fundamental properties of the arithmetic volumes defined for such pairs. We show that the Gateaux derivatives of the arithmetic volume function at big pairs along the directions of adelic R-Cartier divisors are given by suitable arithmetic positive intersection numbers. As a corollary, we obtain an Arakelov theoretic analogue of the Bonnesen-Diskant inequality in convex geometry.
Generalizing a recent construction of Yang and Yu, we study to what extent one can intersect Hassett's Noether-Lefschetz divisors $\mathcal{C}_d$ in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds $\mathcal{C}$. In particular, we exhibit arithmetic conditions on 20 indexes $d_1,\dots, d_{20}$ that assure that the divisors $\mathcal{C}_{d_1},\dots,\mathcal{C}_{d_{20}}$ all intersect one another. This allows us to produce examples of rational cubic fourfolds with an associated K3 surface with rank 20 Néron-Severi group, i.e. a singular K3 surface.
Based on the work of Okounkov, Kaveh-Khovanskii and Lazarsfeld-Mustata independently associated a convex body, called the Okounkov body, to a big divisor on a normal projective variety with respect to an admissible flag. Although the Okounkov bodies carry rich positivity data of big divisors, they only provide information near a single point. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a convex body of a big divisor that is effective in handling the positivity theory associated with multi-point settings. These convex bodies open the door to approach the local positivity theory at multiple points…
