We show that given a smooth projective variety X over C with dim(X) > 2, an ample line bundle O(1) on X and an integer n > 1, any n distinct points on a generic hypersurface of degree d in X are linearly independent in CH_0(X) if d >> 0. This generalizes a result of C. Voisin.
We study the effective cones of cycles on universal hypersurfaces on a projective variety $X$, particularly focusing on the case of universal hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}^n$. We determine the effective cones of cycles on the universal conic over $\mathbb{P}^2$. We also determine every effective cone of cycles of dimension at most 6 or equal to 10 on any universal plane curve.
On étudie les cycles algébriques de codimension 3 sur les hypersurfaces cubiques lisses de dimension 5. Pour une telle hypersurface, on démontre d'une part que son groupe de Griffiths des cycles de codimension 3 est trivial et d'autre part que l'application d'Abel-Jacobi induit un isomorphisme entre son groupe de Chow des cycles de codimension 3 algébriquement equivalents à zéro et sa jacobienne intermédiaire. ---------- We study 2-cycles of a smooth cubic hypersurface of dimension 5. We show that the Griffiths group of 2-cycles is trivial and the Abel-Jacobi map induces an isomorphism between…
We prove the existence of a canonical zero-cycle on a Calabi-Yau hypersurface X in a complex projective homogeneous variety. More precisely, we show that the intersection of any n divisors on X, n=dim X, is proportional to the class of a point on a rational curve in X.
In this series of lectures, I will discuss results for complex hypersurfaces with non-isolated singularities. In Lecture 1, I will review basic definitions and results on complex hypersurfaces, and then present classical material on the Milnor fiber and fibration. In Lecture 2, I will present basic results from Morse theory, and use them to prove some results about complex hypersurfaces, including a proof of Lê's attaching result for Milnor fibers of non-isolated hypersurface singularities. This will include defining the relative polar curve. Lecture 3 will begin with a discussion of intersect…
We give a new formula for the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class of a hypersurface in a nonsigular compact complex analytic variety. In particular this formula generalizes our previous result on the Euler characteristic of such a hypersurface. Two different approaches are presented. The first is based on the theory of characteristic cycle and the works of Sabbah, Briancon-Maisonobe-Merle, and Le-Mebkhout. In particular, this approach leads to a simple proof of a formula of Aluffi for the above mentioned class. The second approach uses Verdier's specialization property of the Chern-Schwartz-MacPhe…
Let F(X_d) be a smooth Fano variety of lines of a hypersurface X_d of degree d. In this paper, we prove the Griffiths group Griff_1(F(X_d)) is trivial if the hypersurface X_d is of 2-Fano type. As a result, we give a positive answer to a question of Professor Voisin about the first Griffiths groups of Fano varieties in some cases. Base on this result, we prove that CH_2(X_d)=\mathbb{Z} for a complex smooth $3$-Fano hypersurface X_d whose Fano variety of lines is smooth.
Let $X\subset\mathbb P^4$ be a very general hypersurface of degree $d\ge6$. Griffiths and Harris conjectured in 1985 that the degree of every curve $C\subset X$ is divisible by $d$. Despite substantial progress by Kollár in 1991, this conjecture is not known for a single value of $d$. Building on Kollár's method, we prove this conjecture for infinitely many $d$, the smallest one being $d=5005$. The set of these degrees $d$ has positive density. We also prove a higher-dimensional analogue of this result and construct smooth hypersurfaces defined over $\mathbb Q$ that satisfy the conjecture.
In this paper we give two explicit relations among 1-cycles modulo rational equivalence on a smooth cubic hypersurfaces $X$. Such a relation is given in terms of a (pair of) curve(s) and its secant lines. As the first application, we reprove Paranjape's theorem that $\mathrm{CH}_1(X)$ is always generated by lines and that it is isomorphic to $\Z$ if the dimension of $X$ is at least 5. Another application is to the intermediate jacobian of a cubic threefold $X$. To be more precise, we show that the intermediate jacobian of $X$ is naturally isomorphic to the Prym-Tjurin variety constructed from …
For every even number $n$, and every $n$-dimensional smooth hypersurface of $\mathbb{P}^{n+1}$ of degree $d$, we compute the periods of all its $\frac{n}{2}$-dimensional complete intersection algebraic cycles. Furthermore, we determine the image of the given algebraic cycle under the cycle class map inside the De Rham cohomology group of the corresponding hypersurface in terms of its Griffiths basis and the polarization. As an application, we use this information to address variational Hodge conjecture for a non complete intersection algebraic cycle. We prove that the locus of general hypersur…
We prove an extended Lefschetz principle for a large class of pencils of hypersurfaces having isolated singularities, possibly in the axis, and show that the module of vanishing cycles is generated by the images of certain variation maps.
Over any complex cubic hypersurface of dimension at least 2, the Chow group of 1-dimensional cycles is spanned by the lines lying on the hypersurface. The smooth case has already been given several other proofs. -- On montre que sur toute hypersurface cubique complexe de dimension au moins 2, le groupe de Chow des cycles de dimension 1 est engendré par les droites. Le cas lisse est un théorème connu. La démonstration ici donnée repose sur un résultat sur les surfaces géométriquement rationnelles sur un corps quelconque (1983), obtenu via la K-théorie algébrique.
Let $X$ be a cubic hypersurface in $\mathbb P^6$ or a hypersurface of degree greater than equal to $7$ in $\mathbb P^5$. In this note we try to understand, for a very general hyperplane section of $X$, the non-injectivity locus of the corresponding push-forward homomorphism at the level of Chow group of certain dimension.
This is a continuation of "Rational curves on hypersurfaces of low degree", math.AG/0203088. We prove that if d^2+d+1 < n and d > 2, then for a general hypersurface X_d in P^n of degree d, for each degree e the space of rational curves of degree e on X is itself a rationally connected variety.
We study rational curves on general Fano hypersurfaces in projective space, mostly by degenerating the hypersurface along with its ambient projective space to reducible varieties. We prove results on existence of low-degree rational curves with balanced normal bundle, and reprove some results on irreducibility of spaces of rational curves of low degree.
This article proves hypersurfaces of degree d in projective n-space are "rationally simply-connected" if $d^2 \leq n$. In a forthcoming paper, de Jong and I prove a slightly weaker result when $d^2 \leq n+1$.
The purpose of this paper is to compute the degree of irrationality of hypersurfaces of sufficiently high degree in various Fano varieties: quadrics, Grassmannians, products of projective space, cubic threefolds, cubic fourfolds, and complete intersection threefolds of type (2,2). This extends the techniques of Bastianelli, De Poi, Ein, Lazarsfeld, and the second author who computed the degree of irrationality of hypersurfaces of sufficiently high degree in projective space. A theme in the paper is that the fibers of low degree rational maps from the hypersurfaces to projective space tend to l…
Let n > 2 and let d < (n+1)/2. We prove that for a general hypersurface X of degree d in P^n, all the genus 0 Kontsevich moduli spaces M_{0,n}(X,e) are irreducible, reduced, local complete intersection stacks of the expected dimension.
In this paper we propose and prove an explicit formula for computing the degree of Fano schemes of linear subspaces on general hypersurfaces. The method used here is based on the localization theorem and Bott's residue formula in equivariant intersection theory.
For a hypersurface in complex projective space $X\subset \PP^n$, we investigate the singularities and Kodaira dimension of the Kontsevich moduli spaces $\Kbm{0,0}{X,e}$ parametrizing rational curves of degree $e$ on $X$. If $d+e \leq n$ and $X$ is a general hypersurface of degree $d$, we prove that $\Kbm{0,0}{X,e}$ has only canonical singularities and we conjecture the same is true for the coarse moduli space $\kbm{0,0}{X,e}$.This investigation is motivated by the question of which Fano hypersurfaces are unirational.
In this article we find connections between the values of Gauss hypergeometric functions and the dimension of the vector space of Hodge cycles of four dimensional cubic hypersurfaces. Since the Hodge conjecture is well-known for those varieties we calculate values of Hypergeometric series on certain $CM$ points. Our methods is based on the calculation of the Picard-Fuchs equations in higher dimensions, reducing them to the Gauss equation and then applying the Abelian Subvariety Theorem to the corresponding hypergeometric abelian varieties.
Since the work of Ellingsrud and Peskine at the end of 1980s, it has been known that, with the exception of a finite number of families, smooth compact complex surfaces in $\mathbb{P}^4$ with prescribed Chern classes must lie on hypersurfaces of degree $m\leq 5$. The study of surfaces lying on a small degree hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^4$---small meaning $\leq5$---seems to be a way of obtaining empirical data leading to a better conceptual understanding of surfaces in $\mathbb{P}^4$. From this perspective, two main issues are considered in the paper: - an analogue of the Hartshorne-Lichtenbaum…
We prove a formula for the polar degree of projective hypersurfaces in terms of the Milnor data of the singularities, extending to 1-dimensional singularities the Dimca-Papadima result for isolated singularities. We discuss the semi-continuity of the polar degree in deformations, and we classify the homaloidal cubic surfaces with 1-dimensional singular locus. Some open questions are pointed out along the way.
In this paper we show that on a general hypersurface of degree $r=3,4,5,6$ in ${\bf P}^5$ a rank 2 vector bundle $E$ splits if and only if $h^1 E(n)=h^2 E(n)=0$ for all $n \in \bf Z$.
Under a hypothesis on $k$, $d$ and $n$ that is almost the best possible, we prove that for every smooth degree $d$ hypersurface in $P^n$, the $k$-plane sections dominate the moduli space of degree $d$ hypersurface in $P^k$. Using this we prove rational simple connectedness of every smooth degree $d$ hypersurface in $P^n$, under a suitable hypothesis on $d$ and $n$ (previous results were only for general hypersurfaces).
Given a hypersurface in the complex projective $n$-space we prove several known formulas for the degree of its polar map by purely algebro-geometric methods. Furthermore, we give formulas for the degree of its polar map in terms of the degrees of the polar maps of its components. As an application, we classify the plane curves with polar map of low degree, including a very simple proof of I. Dolgachev's classification of homaloidal plane curves.
We show that complex Fano hypersurfaces can have arbitrarily large degrees of irrationality. More precisely, if we fix a Fano index e, then the degree of irrationality of a very general complex Fano hypersurface of index e and dimension n is bounded from below by a constant times $\sqrt{n}$. To our knowledge this gives the first examples of rationally connected varieties with degrees of irrationality greater than 3. The proof follows a degeneration to characteristic p argument which Kollár used to prove nonrationality of Fano hypersurfaces. Along the way we show that in a family of varieties, …
In this paper we are interested in proving that the infinitesimal variations of Hodge structure of hypersurfaces of high enough degree lie in a proper subvariety of the variety of all infinitesimal variations. This is proved using a space of symmetrizers as defined by Donagi, to identify a geometric structure carried by the variety of all infinitesimal variations of Hodge structure.
We study the Chow motive (with rational coefficients) of a hypersurface X in the projective space by using the variety F(X) of l-dimensional planes contained in X. If the degree of X is sufficiently small we show that the primitive part of the motive of X is the tensor product of a direct summand in the motive of a suitable complete intersection in F(X) and the l-th twist Q(-l) of the Lefschetz motive.
Let $k$ be an uncountable algebraically closed field of characteristic $0$, and let $X$ be a smooth projective connected variety of dimension $2p$, appropriately embedded into $\mathbb P^m$ over $k$. Let $Y$ be a hyperplane section of $X$, and let $A^p(Y)$ and $A^{p+1}(X)$ be the groups of algebraically trivial algebraic cycles of codimension $p$ and $p+1$ modulo rational equivalence on $Y$ and $X$ respectively. Assume that, whenever $Y$ is smooth, the group $A^p(Y)$ is regularly parametrized by an abelian variety $A$ and coincides with the subgroup of degree $0$ classes in the Chow group $CH^…
This paper studies the existence of free and very free curves on the degree 5 Fermat hypersurface in P^5 over a field of characteristic 2. We find that such curves exist in degrees 8 and 9 and not in lower degrees.
We prove that the sweeping components of the space of smooth rational curves in a smooth hypersurface of degree $d$ in $P^n$ are not uniruled if $(n+1)/2 \leq d \leq n-3$. We also show that for any positive integer $e$, the space of smooth rational curves of degree $e$ in a general hypersurface of degree $d$ in $P^n$ is not uniruled when $d \geq e \sqrt{n}$.
To every projective variety $X$, we associate a family of hypersurfaces in different Grassmannians, called the coisotropic hypersurfaces of $X$. These include the Chow form and the Hurwitz form of $X$. Gel'fand, Kapranov and Zelevinsky characterized coisotropic hypersurfaces by a rank one condition on tangent spaces. We present a new and simplified proof of that result. We show that the coisotropic hypersurfaces of $X$ equal those of its projectively dual variety, and that their degrees are the polar degrees of $X$. Coisotropic hypersurfaces of Segre varieties are defined by hyperdeterminants,…
This paper presents two approaches to reducing problems on $2$-cycles on a smooth cubic hypersurface $X$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic $\neq 2$, to problems on $1$-cycles on its variety of lines $F(X)$. The first one relies on bitangent lines of $X$ and Tsen-Lang theorem. It allows to prove that $\mathrm{CH}_2(X)$ is generated, via the action of the universal $\mathbb P^1$-bundle over $F(X)$, by $\mathrm{CH}_1(F(X))$. When the characteristic of the base field is $0$, we use that result to prove that if $dim(X)\geq 7$, then $\mathrm{CH}_2(X)$ is generated by classes of pl…
Alex Waldron proved that for sufficiently general degree $d$ hypersurfaces in projective $n$-space, the Fano scheme parameterizing $r$-dimensional linear spaces contained in the hypersurface is nonempty precisely for the degree range $n\geq N_1(r,d)$ where the "expected dimension" $f_1(n,r,d)$ is nonnegative, in which case $f_1(n,r,d)$ equals the (pure) dimension. Using work by Gleb Nenashev, we prove that for sufficiently general degree $d$ hypersurfaces in projective $n$-space, the parameter space of $r$-dimensional $e$-uple Veronese varieties contained in the hypersurface is nonempty of pur…
This is the continuation of our paper [10]. In this paper which is self contained, we would like to give a different obstruction formula to the FIRST order deformation of the pair of a smooth curve and a smooth hypersurface. This obstruction formula leads to a genus formula for a smooth curve in a smooth hypersurface. As an application we show that smooth elliptic curves in a smooth hypersurface of degree $$h\geq 2n-1$$ in the projective space $\mathbf P^n, n\geq 3,$ can't deform in the first order to all hypersurfaces of the same degree. In particular, there are no smooth elliptic curves in g…
We establish birational superrigidity for a large class of singular projective Fano hypersurfaces of index one. In the special case of isolated singularities, our result applies for instance to: (1) hypersurfaces with semi-homogeneous singularities of multiplicity asymptotically bounded by twice the square root of the dimension of the hypersurface, (2) hypersurfaces with isolated singularities whose Tyurina numbers satisfy a similar bound, and (3) hypersurfaces with isolated singularities whose dual variety is a hypersurface of degree sufficiently close to the expected degree.
Let $k$ be an algebraically closed field. Fix integers $n$ and $b$ with $n\geq 3$ and $1\leq b\leq n-1.$ Let $T^d_k$ be the moduli space of hypersurfaces $[F]$ in $\mathbb{P}^n_k$ of degree $l$ whose singular locus contains a subscheme of dimension $b$ with Hilbert polynomial among the Hilbert polynomials of $b$-dimensional integral closed subschemes of $\mathbb{P}^n$ of degree $d$. We prove that when $l$ is sufficiently large and $2\leq d\leq \frac{l+1}{2},$ any irreducible component $Z$ of $T^d_k$ satisfies $Z=T^1_k$ or $\dim Z<\dim T^1_k.$
We study various measures of irrationality for hypersurfaces of large degree in projective space and other varieties. These include the least degree of a rational covering of projective space, and the minimal gonality of a covering family of curves. The theme is that positivity properties of canonical bundles lead to lower bounds on these invariants. In particular, we prove that if X is a very general smooth hypersurface of dimension n and degree d \ge 2n+1, then any dominant rational mapping from X to projective n-space must have degree at least d-1. We also propose a number of open problems,…
Fix integers $r\geq 4$ and $i\geq 2$ (for $r=4$ assume $i\geq 3$). Assuming that the rational number $s$ defined by the equation $\binom{i+1}{2}s+(i+1)=\binom{r+i}{i}$ is an integer, we prove an upper bound for the genus of a reduced and irreducible complex projective curve in $\mathbb P^r$, of degree $d\gg s$, not contained in hypersurfaces of degree $\leq i$. It turns out that this bound coincides with the Castelnuovo's bound for a curve of degree $d$ in $\mathbb P^{s+1}$. We prove that the bound is sharp if and only if there exists an integral surface $S\subset \mathbb P^r$ of degree $s$, n…
Traditional algebraic geometric invariants lose some of their potency in positive characteristic. For instance, smooth projective hypersurfaces may be covered by lines despite being of arbitrarily high degree. The purpose of this dissertation is to define a class of hypersurfaces that exhibits such classically unexpected properties, and to offer a perspective with which to conceptualize such phenomena. Specifically, this dissertation proposes an analogy between the eponymous $q$-bic hypersurfaces -- special hypersurfaces of degree $q+1$, with $q$ any power of the ground field characteristic, a…
We investigate the spaces of rational curves on a general hypersurface. In particular, we show that for a general degree $d$ hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^n$ with $n \geq d+2$, the space $\overline{\mathcal{M}_{0,0}}(X,e)$ of degree $e$ Kontsevich stable maps from a rational curve to $X$ is an irreducible local complete intersection stack of dimension $e(n-d+1)+n-4$.
We prove that a very general complex hypersurface of degree $n+1$ in $\mathbb{P}^{n+1}$ containing an $r$-plane with multiplicity $m$ is not stably rational for $n \ge 3$, $m, r > 0$ and $n \ge m+r$. We also investigate failure of stable rationality of a very general hypersurface of degree $n+1$ in $\mathbb{P}^{n+1}$ admitting several isolated ordinary double points.
We show that the degrees of rational endomorphisms of very general complex Fano and Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces satisfy certain congruence conditions by specializing to characteristic p. As a corollary we show that very general n-dimensional hypersurfaces of degree $d\ge 5\lceil (n+3)/6\rceil$ are not birational to elliptic fibrations. A key part of the argument is to resolve singularities of general p-cyclic covers in mixed characteristic p.