Are minimal degree rational curves determined by their tangent vectors?
Stefan Kebekus, Sandor J. Kovacs
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The main theorems were improved; they now work for families of rational curves that are not necessarily irreducible. For this, it was necessary to change the proofs and the exposition substantially. An optimized PDF file with additional graphics is available at http://btm8x5.mat.uni-bayreuth.de/~kebekus/publications-e.html
Let X be a projective variety which is covered by rational curves, for instance a Fano manifold over the complex numbers. In this setup, characterization and classification problems lead to the natural question: "Given two points on X, how many minimal degree rational curve are there which contain those points?". A recent answer to this question led to a number of new results in classification theory. As an infinitesimal analogue, we ask "How many minimal degree rational curves exist which contain a prescribed tangent vector?"
In this paper, we give sufficient conditions which guarantee that every tangent vector at a general point of X is contained in at most one rational curve minimal degree. As an immediate application, we obtain irreducibility criteria for the space of minimal rational curves.
Following Contou-Carrere [CC], we consider the Bott-Samelson resolution of a Schubert variety as a variety of galleries in the Tits building associated to the situation. We prove that the rational smoothness of a Schubert variety can be expressed in terms of a subspace of the Zariski tangent space called, the combinatorial tangent space. For this, we use a characterization of rational smoothness of a Schubert variety introduced by Carrell and Peterson [CP].
We give an explicit parametrization of the Hilbert schemes of rational curves C in P^n having a given splitting type of the restricted tangent bundle from P^n to C. The adopted technique uses the description of such curves as projections of a rational normal curve from a suitable linear vertex and a classification of those vertices that correspond to the required splitting type of the restricted tangent bundle. This classification involves the study of a suitable PGL(2) action on the relevant Grassmannian variety.
Let q be a power of a prime integer p, and let X be a Hermitian variety of degree q+1 in the n-dimensional projective space. We count the number of rational normal curves that are tangent to X at distinct q+1 points with intersection multiplicity n. This generalizes a result of B. Segre on the permutable pairs of a Hermitian curve and a smooth conic.
Suppose that $X$ is a smooth projective variety and that $C$ is a general member of a family of free rational curves on $X$. We prove several statements showing that the Harder-Narasimhan filtration of $T_{X}|_{C}$ is approximately the same as the restriction of the Harder-Narasimhan filtration of $T_{X}$ with respect to the class of $C$. When $X$ is a Fano variety, we prove that the set of all restricted tangent bundles for general free rational curves is controlled by a finite set of data. We then apply our work to analyze Peyre's "freeness" formulation of Manin's Conjecture in the setting o…
The purpose of this paper is to translate positivity properties of the tangent bundle (and the anti-canonical bundle) of an algebraic manifold into existence and movability properties of rational curves and to investigate the impact on the global geometry of the manifold $X$. Among the results we prove are these: \quad If $X$ is a projective manifold, and ${\cal E} \subset T_X$ is an ample locally free sheaf with $n-2\ge rk {\cal E}\ge n$, then $X \simeq \EP_n$. \quad Let $X$ be a projective manifold. If $X$ is rationally connected, then there exists a free $T_X$-ample family of (rational) cur…
This survey paper discusses some of the recent progress in the study of rational curves on algebraic varieties. It was written for the survey volume of the priority programme "Global Methods in Complex Geometry", supported by the DFG. To start, we discuss existence results for rational curves on foliated manifolds. We construct the tangent morphism, define the variety of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) and name a number of results that show that many of the geometry properies of a uniruled variety are encoded in the projective geometry of the VMRT. The results are then applied in two differen…
In view of Mori theory, rational homogenous manifolds satisfy a recursive condition: every elementary contraction is a rational homogeneous fibration and the image of any elementary contraction also satisfies the same property. In this paper, we show that a smooth Fano $n$-fold with the same condition and Picard number greater than $n-6$ is either a rational homogeneous manifold or the product of $n-7$ copies of $\mathbb{P}^1$ and a Fano $7$-fold $X_0$ constructed by G. Ottaviani. We also clarify that $X_0$ has non-nef tangent bundle and in particular is not rational homogeneous.
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 $ϕ: X \to \mathbb P^n$ be a double cover branched along a smooth hypersurface of degree $2m, 2 \leq m \leq n-1$. We study the varieties of minimal rational tangents $\mathcal C_x \subset \mathbb P T_x(X)$ at a general point $x$ of $X$. We describe the homogeneous ideal of $\mathcal C_x$ and show that the projective isomorphism type of $\mathcal C_x$ varies in a maximal way as $x$ varies over general points of $X$. Our description of the ideal of $\mathbb C_x$ implies a certain rigidity property of the covering morphism $ϕ$. As an application of this rigidity, we show that any finite morphi…
We give an introduction to the theory of varieties of minimal rational tangents, emphasizing its aspect as a fusion of algebraic geometry and differential geometry, more specifically, a fusion of Mori geometry of minimal rational curves and Cartan geometry of cone structures.
We show that deformations of a surjective morphism onto a Fano manifold of Picard number 1 are unobstructed and rigid modulo the automorphisms of the target, if the variety of minimal rational tangents of the Fano manifold is non-linear or finite. The condition on the variety of minimal rational tangents holds for practically all known examples of Fano manifolds of Picard number 1, except the projective space. When the variety of minimal rational tangents is non-linear, the proof is based on an earlier result of N. Mok and the author on the birationality of the tangent map. When the varieties …
A Fano manifold $X$ with nef tangent bundle is of flag-type if it has the same type of elementary contractions as a complete flag manifold. In this paper we present a method to associate a Dynkin diagram $\mathcal{D}(X)$ with any such $X$, based on the numerical properties of its contractions. We then show that $\mathcal{D}(X)$ is the Dynkin diagram of a semisimple Lie group. As an application we prove that Campana-Peternell conjecture holds when $X$ is a flag-type manifold whose Dynkin diagram is $A_n$ ($X$ is shown to be the complete flag in $\mathbb{P}^n$).
We study minimal rational curves on a complex manifold that are tangent to a distribution. In this setting, the variety of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) has to be isotropic with respect to the Levi tensor of the distribution. Our main result is a converse of this: any smooth projective variety isotropic with respect to a vector-valued anti-symmetric form can be realized as VMRT of minimal rational curves tangent to a distribution on a complex manifold. The complex manifold is constructed as a partial equivariant compactification of a metabelian group, which is a result of independent intere…
For a uniruled projective manifold, we prove that a general rational curve of minimal degree through a general point is uniquely determined by its tangent vector. As applications, among other things we give a new proof, using no Lie theory, of our earlier result that a holomorphic map from a rational homogeneous space of Picard number 1 onto a projective manifold different from the projective space must be a biholomorphic map.
The variety of minimal rational tangents associated to Hecke curves was used by J.-M.Hwang [8] to prove the simplicity of the tangent bundle on the moduli of vector bundles over a curve. In this paper, we use the tangent maps of the symplectic and orthogonal Hecke curves to prove an analogous result for symplectic and orthogonal bundles. In particular, we show the nondegeneracy of the associated variety of minimal rational tangents, which implies the simplicity of the tangent bundle on the moduli spaces of symplectic and orthogonal bundles over a curve. We also show that for large enough genus…
The family of varieties of minimal rational tangents on a quasi-homogeneous projective manifold is isotrivial. Conversely, are projective manifolds with isotrivial varieties of minimal rational tangents quasi-homogenous? We will show that this is not true in general, even when the projective manifold has Picard number 1. In fact, an isotrivial family of varieties of minimal rational tangents needs not be locally flat in differential geometric sense. This leads to the question for which projective variety Z, the Z-isotriviality of varieties of minimal rational tangents implies local flatness. O…
Given a rational homogeneous variety G/P where G is complex simple and of type ADE, we prove that all tangent bundles T_{G/P} are simple, meaning that their only endomorphisms are scalar multiples of the identity. This result combined with Hitchin-Kobayashi correspondence implies stability of these tangent bundles with respect to the anticanonical polarization. Our main tool is the equivalence of categories between homogeneous vector bundles on G/P and finite dimensional representations of a given quiver with relations.
We propose a conjectural list of Fano manifolds of Picard number $1$ with pseudoeffective normalized tangent bundles, which we prove in various situations by relating it to the complete divisibility conjecture of Russo and Zak on varieties with small codegree. Furthermore, the pseudoeffective thresholds and hence the pseudoeffective cones of the projectivized tangent bundles of rational homogeneous spaces of Picard number $1$ are explicitly determined by studying the total dual VMRT and the geometry of stratified Mukai flops. As a by-product, we obtain sharp vanishing theorems on the global tw…
Let X be a Fano manifold with Picard number one such that the tangent bundle T_X is big. If X admits a rational curve with trivial normal bundle, we show that X is isomorphic to the del Pezzo threefold of degree five.
A well known result of Miyaoka asserts that a complex projective manifold is uniruled if its cotangent bundle restricted to a general complete intersection curve is not nef. Using the Harder-Narasimhan filtration of the tangent bundle, it can moreover be shown that the choice of such a curve gives rise to a rationally connected foliation of the manifold. In this note we show that, conversely, a movable curve can be found so that the maximal rationally connected fibration of the manifold may be recovered as a term of the associated Harder-Narasimhan filtration of the tangent bundle.
Complex contact manifolds arise naturally in differential geometry, algebraic geometry and exterior differential systems. Their classification would answer an important question about holonomy groups. The geometry of such manifold $X$ is governed by the contact lines contained in $X$. These are related to the notion of a variety of minimal rational tangents. In this review we discuss the partial classification theorems of projective complex contact manifolds. Among such manifolds one finds contact Fano manifolds (which include adjoint varieties) and projectivised cotangent bundles. In the firs…
In this paper we compute the number of rational curves with one node passing through a given number of points, lines and tangent to a given number of planes in $\mathbb{P}^3$.
We shall show that the variety of minimal rational tangents on a complete toric manifold X is linear and minimal components in RatCurves^n(X) corresponds bijectively to some special primitive collections in the fan defining X.
A nonsingular rational curve $C$ in a complex manifold $X$ whose normal bundle is isomorphic to $${\mathcal O}_{{\mathbb P}^1}(1)^{\oplus p} \oplus {\mathcal O}_{{\mathbb P}^1}^{\oplus q}$$ for some nonnegative integers $p$ and $q$ is called an unbendable rational curve on $X$. Associated with it is the variety of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) at a point $x \in C,$ which is the germ of submanifolds ${\mathcal C}^C_x \subset {\mathbb P} T_x X$ consisting of tangent directions of small deformations of $C$ fixing $x$. Assuming that there exists a distribution $D \subset TX$ such that all small…
As in our previous work [1] we address the problem to determine the splitting of the normal bundle of rational curves. With apolarity theory we are able to characterize some particular subvarieties in some Hilbert scheme of rational curves, defined by the splitting type of the normal bundle and the restricted tangent bundle.
Recently, Kanemitsu has discovered a counterexample to the long-standing conjecture that the tangent bundle of a Fano manifold of Picard number one is (semi)stable. His counterexample is a smooth horospherical variety. There is a weaker conjecture that the tangent bundle of a Fano manifold of Picard number one is simple. We prove that this weaker conjecture is valid for smooth horospherical varieties of Picard number one. Our proof follows from the existence of an irreducible family of unbendable rational curves whose tangent vectors span the tangent spaces of the horospherical variety at gene…
Given an immersion $ϕ: P^1 \to ¶^2$, we give new approaches to determining the splitting of the pullback of the cotangent bundle. We also give new bounds on the splitting type for immersions which factor as $ϕ: P^1 \cong D \subset X \to P^2$, where $X \to P^2$ is obtained by blowing up $r$ distinct points $p_i \in P^2$. As applications in the case that the points $p_i$ are generic, we give a complete determination of the splitting types for such immersions when $r \leq 7$. The case that $D^2=-1$ is of particular interest. For $r \leq8$ generic points, it is known that there are only finitely m…
In this paper, we continue the study of the relation between rational points of rational elliptic surfaces and plane curves. As an application, we give first examples of Zariski pairs of cubic-line arrangements that do not involve inflectional tangent lines.
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.
It is a well-known fact that families of minimal rational curves on rational homogeneous manifolds of Picard number one are uniform, in the sense that the tangent bundle to the manifold has the same splitting type on each curve of the family. In this note we prove that certain --stronger-- uniformity conditions on a family of minimal rational curves on a Fano manifold of Picard number one allow to prove that the manifold is homogeneous.
We show that if the variety of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) of a uniruled projective manifold at a general point is projectively equivalent to that of a symplectic or an odd-symplectic Grassmannian, the germ of a general minimal rational curve is biholomorphic to the germ of a general line in a presymplectic Grassmannian. As an application, we characterize symplectic and odd-symplectic Grassmannians, among Fano manifolds of Picard number 1, by their VMRT at a general point and prove their rigidity under global Kähler deformation. Analogous results for $G/P$ associated with a long root were…
For each $1\leq n\leq6$ we present formulas for the number of $n-$nodal curves in an $n-$dimensional linear system on a smooth, projective surface. This yields in particular the numbers of rational curves in the system of hyperplane sections of a generic $K3-$surface imbedded in \p{n} by a complete system of curves of genus $n$ as well as the number {\bf17,601,000} of rational ({\em singular}) plane quintic curves in a generic quintic threefold.
Deformation of morphisms along leaves of foliations define the tangential foliation on the corresponding space of morphisms. We prove that codimension one fo-liations having a tangential foliation with at least one non-algebraic leaf are transversely homogeneous with structure group determined by the codimension of the non-algebraic leaf in its Zariski closure. As an application, we provide a structure theorem for degree three foliations on $P^3$ .
In this paper we investigate complex uniruled varieties $X$ whose rational curves of minimal degree satisfy a special property. Namely, we assume that the tangent directions to such curves at a general point $x\in X$ form a linear subspace of $T_xX$. As an application of our main result, we give a unified geometric proof of Mori's, Wahl's, Campana-Peternell's and Andreatta-Wiśniewski's characterizations of ${\mathbb P}^n$.
Let G/Q be an homogeneous variety embedded in a projective space P thanks to an ample line bundle L. Take a projective space containing P and form the cone X over G/Q, we call this a cone over an homogeneous variety. Let $α$ a class of 1-cycle on X. In this article we describe the irreducible components of the scheme of morphisms of class $α$ from a rational curve to X. The situation depends on the line bundle L : if the projectivised tangent space to the vertex contains lines (i.e. if G/Q contains lines in P) then the irreducible components are described as in our paper math.AG/0407123 by the…
Pasquier and Perrin discovered that the ${\rm G}_2$-horospherical manifold ${\bf X}$ of Picard number 1 can be realized as a smooth specialization of the rational homogeneous space parameterizing the lines on the 5-dimensional hyperquadric, in other words, it can be deformed nontrivially to the rational homogeneous space. We show that ${\bf X}$ is the only smooth projective variety with this property. This is obtained as a consequence of our main result that ${\bf X}$ can be recognized by its VMRT, namely, a Fano manifold of Picard number 1 is biregular to ${\bf X}$ if and only if its VMRT at …
In this paper we address Fano manifolds X with a locally unsplit dominating family of rational curves of anticanonical degree equal to the dimension of X. We first observe that their Picard number is at most 3, and then we provide a classification of all cases with maximal Picard number. We also give examples of locally unsplit dominating families of rational curves whose varieties of minimal tangents at a general point is singular.
The set of T-invariant curves in a Schubert variety through a T-fixed point is relatively easy to characterize in terms of its weights, but the tangent space is more difficult. We prove that the weights of the tangent space are contained in the rational cone generated by the weights of the T-invariant curves. In simply laced types, this remains true if "rational" is replaced by "integral". We also obtain conditions under which every weight of the tangent space is the weight of a T-invariant curve, as well as a smoothness criterion. The results rely on equivariant K-theory, as well as the study…
A caustic of a strictly convex planar bounded billiard is a smooth curve whose tangent lines are reflected from the billiard boundary to its tangent lines. The famous Birkhoff Conjecture states that if the billiard boundary has an inner neighborhood foliated by closed caustics, then the billiard is an ellipse. It was studied by many mathematicians, including H.Poritsky, M.Bialy, S.Bolotin, A.Mironov, V.Kaloshin, A.Sorrentino and others. In the paper we study its following generalized dual version stated by S.Tabachnikov. Consider a closed smooth strictly convex curve $γ\subset\mathbb{RP}^2$ eq…
Let $X$ be a projective variety and let $C$ be a rational normal curve on $X$. We compute the normal bundle of $C$ in a general complete intersection of hypersurfaces of sufficiently large degree in $X$. As a result, we establish the separable rational connectedness of a large class of varieties, including general Fano complete intersections of hypersurfaces of degree at least three in flag varieties, in arbitrary characteristic. In addition, we give a new way of computing the normal bundle of certain rational curves in products of varieties in terms of their restricted tangent bundles and nor…
Let $C\subset \mathbb{P}^n$ be a rational normal curve and let $\ell_O:\mathbb{P}^{n+1}\dashrightarrow \mathbb{P}^n$ be any tangential projection form a point $O\in T_AC$ where $A\in C$. Hence $X:= \ell_O(C)\subset \mathbb{P}^n$ is a linearly normal cuspidal curve with degree $n+1$. For any $P = \ell_O(B)$, $B\in \mathbb{P}^{n+1}$, the $X$-rank $r_X(P)$ of $P$ is the minimal cardinality of a set $S\subset X$ whose linear span contains $P$. Here we describe $r_X(P)$ in terms of the schemes computing the $C$-rank or the border $C$-rank of $B$.
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…
If $X$ is a rational surface without nonzero holomorphic vector field and $f$ is an automorphism of $X$, we study in several examples the Zariski tangent space of the local deformation space of the pair $(X, f)$.
We derive recursive equations for the characteristic numbers of rational nodal plane curves with at most one cusp, subject to point conditions, tangent conditions and flag conditions, developing techniques akin to quantum cohomology on a moduli space of stable lifts.
Suppose that 2d-2 tangent lines to the rational normal curve z\mapsto (1 : z : ... : z^d) in d-dimensional complex projective space are given. It was known that the number of codimension 2 subspaces intersecting all these lines is always finite; for a generic configuration it is equal to the d^{th} Catalan number. We prove that for real tangent lines, all these codimension 2 subspaces are also real, thus confirming a special case of a general conjecture of B. and M. Shapiro. This is equivalent to the following result: If all critical points of a rational function lie on a circle in the Riemann…
We develop a new general method for computing the decomposition type of the normal bundle to a projective rational curve. This method is then used to detect and explain an example of a Hilbert scheme that parametrizes all the rational curves in $\mathbb{P}^s$ with a given decomposition type of the normal bundle and that has exactly two irreducible components. This gives a negative answer to the very old question whether such Hilbert schemes are always irreducible. We also characterize smooth non-degenerate rational curves contained in rational normal scroll surfaces in terms of the splitting t…
Let $X_{m,d}\subset \mathbb {P}^N$, $N:= \binom{m+d}{m}-1$, be the order $d$ Veronese embedding of $\mathbb {P}^m$. Let $τ(X_{m,d})\subset \mathbb {P}^N$, be the tangent developable of $X_{m,d}$. For each integer $t \ge 2$ let $τ(X_{m,d},t)\subseteq \mathbb {P}^N$, be the joint of $τ(X_{m,d})$ and $t-2$ copies of $X_{m,d}$. Here we prove that if $m\ge 2$, $d\ge 7$ and $t \le 1 + \lfloor \binom{m+d-2}{m}/(m+1)\rfloor$, then for a general $P\in τ(X_{m,d},t)$ there are uniquely determined $P_1,...,P_{t-2}\in X_{m,d}$ and a unique tangent vector $ν$ of $X_{m,d}$ such that $P$ is in the linear span…
