Let d_{k,n} and #_{k,n} denote the dimension and the degree of the Grassmannian G_{k,n} of k-planes in projective n-space, respectively. For each k between 1 and n-2 there are 2^{d_{k,n}} \cdot #_{k,n} (a priori complex) k-planes in P^n tangent to d_{k,n} general quadratic hypersurfaces in P^n. We show that this class of enumerative problem is fully real, i.e., for each k between 1 and n-2 there exists a configuration of d_{k,n} real quadrics in (affine) real space R^n so that all the mutually tangent k-flats are real.
Throughout the paper, among other esults, we give partial analogues of theorem 1.1 for projectivized tangent cone quadrics of rank equal or less than 4, for Prymians.
We study the variety of common tangents for up to four quadric surfaces in projective three-space, with particular regard to configurations of four quadrics admitting a continuum of common tangents. We formulate geometrical conditions in the projective space defined by all complex quadric surfaces which express the fact that several quadrics are tangent along a curve to one and the same quadric of rank at least three, and called, for intuitive reasons: a basket. Lines in any ruling of the latter will be common tangents. These considerations are then restricted to spheres in Euclidean three-spa…
We examine quadratic surfaces in 3-space that are tangent to nine given figures. These figures can be points, lines, planes or quadrics. The numbers of tangent quadrics were determined by Hermann Schubert in 1879. We study the associated systems of polynomial equations, also in the space of complete quadrics, and we solve them using certified numerical methods. Our aim is to show that Schubert's problems are fully real.
In this work we obtain presentations of fundamental groups of the complements of three families of quadric arrangements in $\mathbb{P}^2$. The first arrangement is a union of $n$ quadrics, which are tangent to each other at two common points. The second arrangement is composed of $n$ quadrics which are tangent to each other at one common point. The third arrangement is composed of $n$ quadrics, $n-1$ of them are tangent to the $n$'th one and each one of the $n-1$ quadrics is transversal to the other $n-2$ ones.
We solve the following geometric problem, which arises in several three-dimensional applications in computational geometry: For which arrangements of two lines and two spheres in R^3 are there infinitely many lines simultaneously transversal to the two lines and tangent to the two spheres? We also treat a generalization of this problem to projective quadrics: Replacing the spheres in R^3 by quadrics in projective space P^3, and fixing the lines and one general quadric, we give the following complete geometric description of the set of (second) quadrics for which the 2 lines and 2 quadrics have…
This paper proves a version of mirror symmetry expressing the (small) Dubrovin connection for even-dimensional quadrics in terms of a mirror-dual Landau-Ginzburg model (Xcan,W). Here Xcan is the complement of an anticanonical divisor in a Langlands dual quadric. The superpotential W is a regular function on Xcan and is written in terms of coordinates which are naturally identified with a cohomology basis of the original quadric. This superpotential is shown to extend the earlier Landau-Ginzburg model of Givental, and to be isomorphic to the Lie-theoretic mirror introduced by Rietsch. We also i…
We consider characterizations of projective varieties in terms of their tangents. S. Mori established the characterization of projective spaces in arbitrary characteristic by ampleness of tangent bundles. J. Wahl characterized projective spaces in characteristic zero by cohomological condition of tangent bundles; in addition, he remarked that a counter-example in characteristic two is constructed from odd-dimensional hyperquadrics $Q_{2n-1}$ with $n > 1$. This is caused by existence of a common point in $\mathbb{P}^{2n}$ which every embedded tangent space to the quadric contains. In general, a…
In this paper, we show that if the tangent bundle of a smooth projective variety is strictly nef, then it is isomorphic to a projective space; if a projective variety $X^n$ $(n>4)$ has strictly nef $Λ^2 TX$, then it is isomorphic to $\mathbb{P}^n$ or quadric $\mathbb{Q}^n$. We also prove that on elliptic curves, strictly nef vector bundles are ample, whereas there exist Hermitian flat and strictly nef vector bundles on any smooth curve with genus $g\geq 2$.
The oloid is the convex hull of two circles with equal radius in perpendicular planes so that the center of each circle lies on the other circle. It is part of a developable surface which we call extended oloid. We determine the tangential system of all inscribed quadrics $\mathcal{Q}_λ$ of the extended oloid $\mathcal{O}$ where $λ$ is the system parameter. From this result we conclude parameter equations of the touching curve $\mathcal{C}_λ$ between $\mathcal{O}$ and $\mathcal{Q}_λ$, the edge of regression $\mathcal{R}$ of $\mathcal{O}$, and the asymptotes of $\mathcal{R}$. Properties of the …
Let $f : X \rightarrow B$ be a proper flat dominant morphism between two smooth quasi-projective complex varieties $X$ and $B$. Assume that there exists an integer $l$ such that all closed fibres $X_b$ of $f$ satisfy $CH_j(X_b) = \Q$ for all $j \leq l$. Then we prove an analogue of the projective bundle formula for $CH_i(X)$ for $i \leq l$. When $B$ is a surface, $X$ is projective and $l = \lfloor \frac{\dim X - 3}{2} \rfloor$, this makes it possible to construct a Chow-Künneth decomposition for $X$ that satisfies Murre's conjectures. For instance we prove Murre's conjectures for complex smoot…
Let $X$ be a smooth complex projective variety. A recent conjecture of S. Kovács states that if t\ he $p^{\text{th}}$-exterior power of the tangent bundle $T_X$ contains the $p^{\text{th}}$-exterior power of an ample vector bundle, then $X$ is either a projective space or a smooth quadric hypersurface. This conjecture is appealing since it is a common generalization of Mori's, Wahl's, Andreatt\ a-Wísniewski's, and Araujo-Druel-Kovács's characterizations of these spaces. In this paper I give a proof affirming this conjecture for varieties with Picard number 1.
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…
In this paper we prove that if the r-th tensor power of the tangent bundle of a smooth projective variety X contains the determinant of an ample vector bundle of rank at least r, then X is isomorphic either to a projective space or to a smooth quadric hypersurface.
In this article, we study projective log smooth pairs with numerically flat normalized logarithmic tangent bundle. Generalizing works of Jahnke-Radloff and Greb-Kebekus-Peternell, we show that, passing to an appropriate finite cover and up to isomorphism, these are the projective spaces or the log smooth pairs with numerically flat logarithmic tangent bundles blown-up at finitely many points away from the boundary. On the other hand, the structure of log smooth pairs with numerically flat logarithmic tangent bundle is well understood: they are toric fiber bundles over finite étale quotients of…
Let p be a singular point of a complex hypersurface whose tangent cone is a quadric of rank at least 3. We show that the space of arcs through p is irreducible. Using a method of de Fernex, this shows that the Nash problem has a negative answer for x^2+y^2+z^2+t^5=0. Version 2: Several small corrections.
Let T -> S be a finite flat morphism of degree two between regular integral schemes of dimension at most two (and with 2 invertible), having regular branch divisor D. We establish a bijection between Azumaya quaternion algebras on T and quadric surface bundles over S with simple degeneration along D. This is a manifestation of the exceptional isomorphism A_1^2 = D_2 degenerating to the exceptional isomorphism A_1 = B_1. In one direction, the even Clifford algebra yields the map. In the other direction, we show that the classical algebra norm functor can be uniquely extended over the discrimina…
We isolate a class of smooth rational cubic fourfolds X containing a plane whose associated quadric surface bundle does not have a rational section. This is equivalent to the nontriviality of the Brauer class of the even Clifford algebra over the K3 surface S of degree 2 arising from X. Specifically, we show that in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds, the intersection of divisors C_8 and C_14 has five irreducible components. In the component corresponding to the existence of a tangent conic to the sextic degeneration curve of the quadric bundle, we prove that the general member is both pfaffi…
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…
Let $ \mathcal{D} = \{D_{1}, \ldots, D_{\ell}\} $ be an arrangement of smooth hypersurfaces with normal crossings on the complex projective space $ \mathbb{P}^{n} $ and let $ Ω^{1}_{\mathbb{P}^{n}}(log \mathcal{D}) $ be the logarithmic bundle attached to it. Our aim is to study the injectivity of the correspondence $ \mathcal{D} \longrightarrow Ω^{1}_{\mathbb{P}^{n}}(log \mathcal{D}) $. In order to do that, we first show that $ Ω^{1}_{\mathbb{P}^{n}}(log \mathcal{D}) $ admits a resolution of length $ 1 $ depending on the degrees and on the equations of $ D_{1}, \ldots, D_{\ell} $. Then, we pro…
The intersection of a quadric and a cubic surface in 3-space is a canonical curve of genus 4. It has 120 complex tritangent planes. We present algorithms for computing real tritangents, and we study the associated discriminants. We focus on space sextics that arise from del Pezzo surfaces of degree one. Their numbers of planes that are tangent at three real points vary widely; both 0 and 120 are attained. This solves a problem suggested by Arnold Emch in 1928.
We classify group schemes in terms of their Cartier modules. We also prove the equivalence of different definitions of the tangent space and the dimension for these group schemes; in particular, the minimal dimension of a formal group law that contains $S$ as a closed subgroup is equal to the minimal number of generators for the affine algebra of $S$. As an application the following reduction criteria for Abelian varieties are proved. Let $K$ be a mixed characteristic local field, let its residue field have characteristic $p$, $L$ be a finite extension of $K$, let $\mathfrak{O}_K\subset\mathfr…
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 …
In this paper we will use our results about the local deformation theory of Calabi-Yau manifolds to define a Higgs field on the tangent bundle of the moduli space of CY threefolds. Combining this Higgs field with the Levi-Chevitta connection of the Weil-Petersson metrics on the moduli space of three dimensional CY manifolds, we construct a new $Sp(2h^{2,1}% ,\mathbb{R)}$ connection, following the ideas of Cecotti and Vafa. We prove that this new connection is a flat connection. Using this flat connection, we apply the scheme of geometric quantization introduced by Axelrod, Della Pietra and Wit…
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.
This is a survey of the current state of the theory of $F$--(super)manifolds $(M,\circ)$, first defined in [HeMa] and further developed in [He], [Ma2], [Me1]. Here $\circ$ is an $\Cal{O}_M$--bilinear multiplication on the tangent sheaf $\Cal{T}_M$, satisfying an integrability condition. $F$--manifolds and compatible flat structures on them furnish a useful weakening of Dubrovin's Frobenius structure which naturally arises in the quantum $K$--theory, theory of extended moduli spaces, and unfolding spaces of singularities.
A. Girand has constructed an explicit two-parameter family of flat connections over the complex projective plane $\mathbb{P}^2$. These connections have dihedral monodromy and their polar locus is a prescribed quintic composed of a conic and three tangent lines. In this paper, we give a generalization of this construction. That is, we construct an explicit $n$-parameter family of flat connections over the complex projective space $\mathbb{P}^n$. Moreover, we discuss the relation between these connections and the Garnier system.
