The present paper is related to a conjecture made by Green and Lazarsfeld concerning 1-linear syzygies of curves embedded by complete linear systems of sufficiently large degrees. Given a smooth, irreducible, complex, projective curve $X$, we prove that the least integer $q$ for which the property $(M_q)$ fails for a line bundle $L$ on $X$ does not depend on $L$ as soon as its degree becomes sufficiently large. Consequently, this number is an invariant of the curve, and the statement of Green-Lazarsfeld's conjecture is equivalent to saying that this invariant equals the gonality of the curve. We verify the conjecture for plane curves, curves lying on Hirzebruch surfaces, and for generic curves having the genus sufficiently large compared to the gonality. We conclude the paper by proving that Green's canonical conjecture holds for curves lying on Hirzebruch surfaces.
The purpose of this paper is to prove Ein--Lazarsfeld's conjecture on asymptotic vanishing of syzygies of algebraic varieties. This result, together with Ein--Lazarsfeld's asymptotic nonvanishing theorem, describes the overall picture of asymptotic behaviors of the minimal free resolutions of the graded section rings of line bundles on a projective variety as the positivity of the line bundles grows. Previously, Raicu reduced the problem to the case of products of three projective spaces, and we resolve this case here.
We analyze the vanishing and non-vanishing behavior of the graded Betti numbers for Segre embeddings of products of projective spaces. We give lower bounds for when each of the rows of the Betti table becomes non-zero, and prove that our bounds are tight for Segre embeddings of products of P^1. This generalizes results of Rubei concerning the Green-Lazarsfeld property N_p for Segre embeddings. Our methods combine the Kempf-Weyman geometric technique for computing syzygies, the Ein-Erman-Lazarsfeld approach to proving non-vanishing of Betti numbers, and the theory of algebras with straightening…
Inspired by the methods of Voisin, the first two authors recently proved that one could read off the gonality of a curve C from the syzygies of its ideal in any one embedding of sufficiently large degree. This was deduced from from a vanishing theorem for the asymptotic syzygies associated to an arbitrary line bundle B on C. The present paper extends this vanishing theorem to a smooth projective variety X of arbitrary dimension. Specifically, given a line bundle B on X, we prove that if B is p-jet very ample (i.e. the sections of B separate jets of total weight p+1) then the weight one Koszul …
We survey three results on syzygies of curves beyond Green's conjecture, with a particular emphasis on drawing connections between the study of syzygies and other topics in moduli theory.
One describes those double structures on rational normal curves which are defined scheme theoretically by quadratic equations and have linear syzygies, generalizing this way the double line in the plane
The purpose of this paper is to establish an effective non-vanishing theorem for the syzygies of an adjoint-type line bundle on a smooth variety, as the positivity of the embedding increases. Our purpose here is to show that for an adjoint type divisor $B = K_X+ bA$ with $b \geq n+1$, one can obtain an effective statement for arbitrary $X$ which specializes to the statement for Veronese syzygies in the paper "Asymptotic Syzygies of Algebraic Varieties" by Ein and Lazarsfeld. We also give an answer to Problem 7.9 in that paper in this setting.
In this article we prove some strong vanishing theorems on K3 surfaces. As an aplication of them, we obtain higher syzygy results for K3 surfaces and Fano varieties.
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.
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 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 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 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…
We investigate the relations between the syzygies of the Jacobian ideal of the defining equation for a plane curve $C$ and the stability of the sheaf of logarithmic vector fields along $C$, the freeness of the divisor $C$ and the Torelli properties of $C$ (in the sense of Dolgachev-Kapranov). We show in particular that curves with a small number of nodes and cusps are Torelli in this sense.
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 show that a small variant of the methods used by Voisin in her study of canonical curves leads to a surprisingly quick proof of the gonality conjecture of Green and the second author, asserting that one can read off the gonality of a curve C from its resolution in the embedding defined by any one line bundle of sufficiently large degree. More generally, we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the asymptotic vanishing of the weight one syzygies of the module associated to an arbitrary line bundle on C.
We prove two statements concerning the linear strand of the minimal free resolution of a curve of fixed gonality. Firstly, we show that a general curve C of genus g of non-maximal gonality k\leq (g+1)/2 satisfies Schreyer's Conjecture, that is, b_{g-k,1}(C,K_C)=g-k, and all its highest order linear syzygies are of Eagon-Northcott type. This is a statement going beyond Green's Conjecture and predicts that all highest order linear syzygies in the canonical embedding of C are determined by the syzygies of the (k-1)-dimensional scroll containing C. Secondly, we formulate an optimal effective versi…
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}.
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.
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 the asymptotic non-vanishing of syzygies for products of projective spaces. Generalizing the monomial methods of Ein, Erman, and Lazarsfeld \cite{einErmanLazarsfeld16} we give an explicit range in which the graded Betti numbers of $\mathbb{P}^{n_1}\times \mathbb{P}^{n_2}$ embedded by $\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^{n_1}\times\mathbb{P}^{n_2}}(d_1,d_2)$ are non-zero. These bounds provide the first example of how the asymptotic syzygies of a smooth projective variety whose embedding line bundle grows in a semi-ample fashion behave in nuanced and previously unseen ways.
We start the study of reduced complex projective plane curves, whose Jacobian syzygy module has 3 generators. Among these curves one finds the nearly free curves introduced by the authors, and the plus-one generated line arrangements introduced by Takuro Abe. All the Thom-Sebastiani type plane curves, and more generally, any curve whose global Tjurina number is equal to a lower bound given by A. du Plessis and C.T.C. Wall, are 3-syzygy curves. Rational plane curves which are nearly cuspidal, i.e. which have only cusps except one singularity with two branches, are also related to this class of …
First we give a sharp upper bound for the cardinal $m$ of a minimal set of generators for the module of Jacobian syzygies of a complex projective reduced plane curve $C$. Next we discuss the sharpness of an upper bound, given by A. du Plessis and C.T.C. Wall, for the global Tjurina number of such a curve $C$, in terms of its degree $d$ and of the minimal degree $r\leq d-1$ of a Jacobian syzygy. We give a homological characterization of the curves whose global Tjurina number equals the du Plessis-Wall upper bound, which implies in particular that for such curves the upper bound for $m$ is also …
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 relate the equianalytic and the equisingular deformations of a reduced complex plane curve to the Jacobian syzygies of its defining equation. Several examples and conjectures involving rational cuspidal curves are discussed.
We show that vanishing of asymptotic p-th syzygies implies p-very ampleness for line bundles on arbitrary projective schemes. For smooth surfaces we prove that the converse holds when p is small, by studying the Bridgeland-King-Reid-Haiman correspondence for tautological bundles on the Hilbert scheme of points. This extends previous results of Ein-Lazarsfeld, Ein-Lazarsfeld-Yang and gives a partial answer to some of their questions. As an application of our results, we show how to use syzygies to bound the irrationality of a variety.
Our main result describes the relation between the syzygies involving the first order partial derivatives $f_0,...,f_n$ of a homogeneous polynomial $f\in \C[x_0,...x_n]$ and the defect of the linear systems vanishing on the singular locus subscheme $Σ_f=V(f_0,...,f_n)$ of the hypersurface $D:f=0$ in the complex projective space $\PP^n$, when $D$ has only isolated singularities.
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 $5$.
This paper is a survey of recent work on the asymptotic behavior of the syzygies of a smooth complex projective variety as the positivity of the embedding line bundle grows. After a quick overview of results from the 1980s and 1990s concerning the linearity of the first few terms of a resolution, we discuss a non-vanishing theorem to the effect that from an asymptotic viewpoint, essentially all of the syzygy modules that could be non-zero are in fact non-zero. We explain the quick new proof of this result in the case of Veronese varieties due to Erman and authors, and we explore some results a…
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 $X$.
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 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 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.
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 …
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 $L=K_C$.
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.
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.
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 $g \ge 3n+4$.
Let $\mathcal C :f=0$ be a curve arrangement in the complex projective plane. If $\mathcal C$ contains a curve subarrangement consisting of at least three members in a pencil, then one obtains an explicit syzygy among the partial derivatives of the homogeneous polynomial $f$. In many cases this observation reduces the question about the freeness or the nearly freeness of $\mathcal C$ to an easy computation of Tjurina numbers. Some consequences for Terao's conjecture in the case of line arrangements are also discussed as well as the asphericity of some complements of geometrically constructed f…
This paper studies the asymptotic behavior of the syzygies of a smooth projective variety X as the positivity of the embedding line bundle grows. We prove that as least as far as grading is concerned, the minimal resolution of the ideal of X has a surprisingly uniform asymptotic shape: roughly speaking, generators eventually appear in almost all degrees permitted by Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity. This suggests in particular that a widely-accepted intuition derived from the case of curves -- namely that syzygies become simpler as the degree of the embedding increases -- may have been misleadin…
This paper studies syzygies of curves that have been embedded in projective space by line bundles of large degree. The proofs take advantage of the relationship between syzygies and spaces of section of vector bundles associated to the given line bundles.
In a first part of this paper, we prove constancy of the canonical graded Betti table among the smooth curves in linear systems on Gorenstein weak Fano toric surfaces. In a second part, we show that Green's canonical syzygy conjecture holds for all smooth curves of genus at most 32 or Clifford index at most 6 on arbitrary toric surfaces. Conversely we use known results on Green's conjecture (due to Lelli-Chiesa) to obtain new facts about graded Betti tables of projectively embedded toric surfaces.
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…
Let $C$ be a plane rational curve of degree $d$ and $p:\tilde C \rightarrow C$ its normalization. We are interested in the splitting type $(a,b)$ of $C$, where $\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^1}(-a-d)\oplus \mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^1}(-b-d)$ gives the syzigies of the ideal $(f_0,f_1,f_2)\subset K[s,t]$, and $(f_0,f_1,f_2)$ is a parameterization of $C$. We want to describe in which cases $(a,b)=(k,d-k)$ ($2k\leq d)$, via a geometric description; namely we show that $(a,b)=(k,d-k)$ if and only if $C$ is the projection of a rational curve on a rational normal surface in $\mathbb{P}^{k+1}$.
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.
