We consider projective varieties with degenerate Gauss image whose focal hypersurfaces are non-reduced schemes. Examples of this situation are provided by the secant varieties of Severi and Scorza varieties. The Severi varieties are moreover characterized by a uniqueness property.
We exhibit examples of projective varieties with degenerate Gauss mappings and determine numerical invariants of such varieties. Our examples provide counter-examples to an asserted structure theorem of Griffiths and Harris (Ann. Sci. ENS 1979).
We prove an elementary but somewhat unexpected result about projective embeddings of smooth varieties X whose cotangent bundles are numerically effective. Specifically, we show that the degree of X in any projective embedding must grow (almost) exponentially in the dimension of X.
We study for rationally connected varieties $X$ the group of degree 2 integral homology classes on $X$ modulo those which are algebraic. We show that the Tate conjecture for divisor classes on surfaces defined over finite fields implies that this group is trivial for any rationally connected variety.
It is shown that for a perverse sheaf $K$ on an abelian variety $X$ the integers $i$ for which the cohomology $H^i(X,K)$ does not vanish define an interval in the number line (under certain conditions on the field of definition of $K$)
In this paper we study the connection between rigid sheaves and separable-exceptional objects on Fano varieties over arbitrary fields. We give criteria for a rigid vector bundle on a Fano variety to be the direct sum of separable-exceptional bundles and for a separable-exceptional vector bundle to be part of a full separable-exceptional collection.
In this short note, we show that a construction by Ottem provides an example of a rationally connected variety that is not birationally equivalent to a Mori dream space. This answers in the negative (at least in the category of terminal varieties) a question posed by Krylov.
This paper proposes a conjectural picture for the structure of the Chow ring of a (projective) hyper-Kähler variety, and the construction of a Beauville decomposition, with emphasis on the Chow group of $0$-cycles, which is endowed with a natural filtration of Brill-Noether type. Some of the conjectures are proved in the case of Hilbert schemes of K3 surfaces and Fano varieties of lines of cubic fourfolds.
The image of the higher Gauss map for a projective variety is discussed. The notion of higher Gauss maps here was introduced by Fyodor L. Zak as a generalization of both ordinary Gauss maps and conormal maps. The main result is a closed formula for the degree of those images of Veronese varieties. This yields a generalization of a classical formula by George Boole on the degree of the dual varieties of Veronese varieties in 1844. As an application of our formula, degree bounds for higher Gauss map images of Veronese varieties are given.
We study the Lefschetz standard conjecture on a smooth complex projective variety X. In degree 2, we reduce it to a local statement concerning deformations of vector bundles on X. When X is hyperkähler, we show that the existence of nontrivial deformations of stable hyperholomorphic bundles implies the Lefschetz standard conjecture in codimension 2.
In this paper we define an action of the Weyl group on the quiver varieties $M_{m,\grl}(d,v)$ with generic $(m,\grl)$. To do it we describe a set of generators of the projective ring of a quiver variety. We also prove connectness for the smooth quiver variety $M(d,v)$ and normality for $M_0(d,v)$ in the case of a quiver of finite type and $d-v$ a regular weight.
We investigate a relationship between nondegeneracy of a simple abelian variety $A$ over an algebraic closure of $\mb{Q}$ and of its reduction $A_0$. We prove that under some assumptions, nondegeneracy of $A$ implies nondegeneracy of $A_0$.
We prove a conjecture of Khovanov which identifies the topological space underlying the Springer variety of complete flags in C^2n stabilized by a fixed nilpotent operator with two Jordan blocks of size n.
In this short note, we will gives several remarks on rational points of varieties whose cotangent bundles are generated by global sections. For example, we will show that if the sheaf of differentials of a projective variety X over a number field k is ample and generated by global sections, then the set of k-rational points of X is finite.
In this paper, we firstly point out, by a counter example, that Proposition 6.4 of Section 6 in Bump's book (Algebraic Geometry) is error, and then give a correct statement with proof. We finally point out a gap in the proof of Theorem 3, in Chapter I Section 8, of Mumford's red book, and indicate a way to complete it.
We prove an existence theorem for jet differentials on complete intersection varieties that generalizes a theorem of S. Diverio. We also show that one can readily deduce hyperbolicity for generic complete intersections of high multidegree from earlier work of Diverio-Merker-Rousseau and Diverio-Trapani. And finally we prove the numerical aspect of a conjecture of O. Debarre.
In this note, using methods introduced by Hacon, McKernan and Xu, we study the accumulation points of volumes of varieties of log general type. First, we show that, if the set of boundary coefficients $Λ$ is DCC, closed under limits and contains 1, then also the corresponding set of volumes is DCC and closed under limits. Then, we consider the case of $ε$-log canonical varieties, for $0 < ε< 1$. In this situation, we prove that, if $Λ$ is finite, then the corresponding set of volumes is discrete.
It is known that the variety of pairs of n x n commuting upper triangular matrices isn't a complete intersection for infinitely many values of n; we show that there exists m such that this happens if and only if n > m. We also show that m < 18 and that it could be found by determining the dimension of the variety of pairs of commuting strictly upper triangular matrices. Then we define a natural map from the variety of pairs of commuting n x n matrices onto a subvariety defined by linear equations of the grassmannian of subspaces of codimension 2 of a vector space of dimension n x n.
Kawamata proposed a conjecture predicting that every nef and big line bundle on a smooth projective variety with trivial first Chern class has nontrivial global sections. We verify this conjecture for several cases, including (i) all hyperkähler varieties of dimension $\leq 6$; (ii) all known hyperkähler varieties except for O'Grady's 10-dimensional example; (iii) general complete intersection Calabi-Yau varieties in certain Fano manifolds (e.g. toric ones). Moreover, we investigate the effectivity of Todd classes of hyperkähler varieties and Calabi-Yau varieties. We prove that the fourth Todd…
We prove the following result of Bondal's: that there is a fully faithful embedding $κ$ of the perfect derived category of a proper toric variety into the derived category of constructible sheaves on a compact torus. We compare this result to a torus-equivariant version considered in joint work with Fang, Liu, and Zaslow. There we showed that in the torus-equivariant version the image of the embedding is cut out by microlocal conditions. To establish a similar characterization of the image of $κ$ is an open problem.
Let M be a field of finite type over {\bf Q} and X a variety defined over M. We study when the set {P \in X(K) \mid f^{\circ n} (P) = P for some n \geq 1} is finite for any finite extension fields K of M and for any dominant K-morphisms f : X \to X with deg f \geq 2.
We demonstrate that a conjecture of Teh which relates the niveau filtration on Borel-Moore homology of real varieties and the images of generalized cycle maps from reduced Lawson homology is false. We show that the niveau filtration on reduced Lawson homology is trivial and construct an explicit class of examples for which Teh's conjecture fails by generalizing a result of Schulting. We compare various cycle maps and in particular we show that the Borel-Haeflinger cycle map naturally factors through the reduced Lawson homology cycle map.
We prove some results on effective very ampleness and projective normality for some varieties with trivial canonical bundle. In the first part we prove an effective projective normality result for an ample line bundle on regular smooth four-folds with trivial canonical bundle. More precisely we show that for a regular smooth fourfold with trivial canonical bundle, $A^{\otimes 15}$ is projectively normal for $A$ ample. In the second part we emphasize on the projective normality of multiples of ample and globally generated line bundles on certain classes of known examples (upto deformation) of p…
We investigate Gauss maps of (not necessarily normal) projective toric varieties over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic. The main results are as follows: (1) The structure of the Gauss map of a toric variety is described in terms of combinatorics in any characteristic. (2) We give a developability criterion in the toric case. In particular, we show that any toric variety whose Gauss map is degenerate must be the join of some toric varieties in characteristic zero. (3) As applications, we provide two constructions of toric varieties whose Gauss maps have some given data …
We discuss several conjectures about derived equivalent varieties, defined over fields of arbitrary characteristics, and implications among them. In particular we show that the (conjectural) derived invariance of the Hasse-Weil Zeta functions of smooth projective varieties over finite fields, implies the derived invariance of the Hodge diamond of complex algebraic varieties.
The Tate conjecture for divisors on varieties over number fields is equivalent to finiteness of $\ell$-primary torsion in the Brauer group. We show that this finiteness is actually uniform in one-dimensional families for varieties that satisfy the Tate conjecture for divisors -- e.g. abelian varieties and $K3$ surfaces.
We show that for an irreducible subvariety Y of an abelian variety X the Gauss mapping, from the conormal bundle of $Y$ to the dual of the tangent space of $X$ at the origin, is not dominant if and only if Y is degenerate in the sense that there exists a nontrivial abelian subvariety A of X such that A+Y=Y holds
Let us say that a curve $C\subset\mathbb P^3$ is osculating self-dual if it is projectively equivalent to the curve in the dual space $(\mathbb P^3)^*$ whose points are osculating planes to~$C$. Similarly, we say that a $k$-dimensional subvariety $X\subset\mathbb P^{2k+1}$ is osculating self-dual if its second osculating space at the general point is a hyperplane and $X$ is projectively equivalent to the variety in $(\mathbb P^{2k+1})^*$ whose points are second osculating spaces to $X$. In this note we show that for each $k\ge 1$ there exist many osculating self-dual $k$-dimensional subvarieti…
We study the cones of q-ample divisors on smooth complex varieties. In favourable cases, we identify a part where the closure of this cone and the nef cone have the same boundary. This is especially interesting for Fano (or almost Fano) varieties.
The points of a moment variety are the vectors of all moments up to some order of a family of probability distributions. We study this variety for mixtures of Gaussians. Following up on Pearson's classical work from 1894, we apply current tools from computational algebra to recover the parameters from the moments. Our moment varieties extend objects familiar to algebraic geometers. For instance, the secant varieties of Veronese varieties are the loci obtained by setting all covariance matrices to zero. We compute the ideals of the 5-dimensional moment varieties representing mixtures of two uni…
This short paper is a continuation of the author's Ph.D thesis, where Ekedahl-Oort strata are defined and studied for Shimura varieties of Hodge type. The main results here are as follows. 1. The Ekedahl-Oort stratification is independent of the choices of symplectic embeddings. 2. Under certain reasonable assumptions, there is certain functoriality for Ekedahl-Oort stratifications with respect to morphisms of Shimura varieties.
Let $X$ be a projective variety of dimension $n\ge1$ over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic. We prove a Fujiki-Lieberman type theorem on the structure of the automorphism group of $X$. Let $G$ be a group of zero entropy automorphisms of $X$ and $G_0$ the set of elements in $G$ which are isotopic to the identity. We show that after replacing $G$ by a suitable finite-index subgroup, $G/G_0$ is a unipotent group of the derived length at most $n-1$. This result was first proved by Dinh, Oguiso and Zhang for compact Kähler manifolds.
For an irreducible subvariety Z in an algebraic group G we define a nonnegative integer gdeg(Z) as the degree, in a certain sense, of the Gauss map of Z. It can be regarded as a substitution for the intersection index of the conormal bundle to Z with the zero section of T^*G, even though G may be non-compact. For G a semiabelian variety (in particular, an algebraic torus (C^*)^n) we prove a Riemann-Roch-type formula for constructible sheaves on G, which involves our substitutions for the intersection indices. As a corollary, we get that a perverse sheaf on such a G has nonnegative Euler charac…
This note records that in the setting of complex varieties, the cohomological consequence of Ehresmann's fibration theorem holds without the smooth assumption on the base or the total space.
We use the gradients of theta functions at odd two-torsion points --- thought of as vector-valued modular forms --- to construct holomorphic differential forms on the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties, and to characterize the locus of decomposable abelian varieties in terms of the Gauss images of two-torsion points.
We discuss various results and questions around the Grothendieck period conjecture, which is a counterpart, concerning the de Rham-Betti realization of algebraic varieties over number fields, of the classical conjectures of Hodge and Tate. These results give new evidence towards the conjectures of Grothendieck and Kontsevich-Zagier concerning transcendence properties of the torsors of periods of varieties over number fields. We notably establish that the Grothendieck period conjecture holds in degree 1 for products of curves, of abelian varieties, and of K3 surfaces, and that it holds in degre…
In this short note, we will show the following weak evidence of S. Lang conjecture over function fields. Let f : X ---> Y be a projective and surjective morphism of algebraic varieties over an algebraically closed field k of characteristic zero, whose generic fiber is geometrically irreducible and of general type. If f is not birationally trivial, then there are countably many proper closed varieties { Z_i } of X such that every quasi-section of f is contained in the union of Z_i.
This is an expanded and updated version of a lecture series I gave at Seoul National University in September 1997. It is in some sense an update of the 1979 Griffiths and Harris paper with a similar title. I discuss: Homogeneous varieties, Topology and consequences Projective differential invariants, Varieties with degenerate Gauss images, When can a uniruled variety be smooth?, Dual varieties, Linear systems of bounded and constant rank, Secant and tangential varieties, Systems of quadrics with tangential defects, Recognizing uniruled varieties, Recognizing intersections of quadrics, Recogniz…
We study some conjectures about Chow groups of varieties of geometric genus one. Some examples are given of Calabi-Yau threefolds where these conjectures can be verified, using the theory of finite-dimensional motives.
We prove a number of basic vanishing results for modified diagonal classes. We also obtain some sharp results for modified diagonals of curves and abelian varieties, and we prove a conjecture of O'Grady about modified diagonals on double covers.
I show that on any smooth, projective ordinary curve of genus at least two and a projective embedding, there is a natural example of a stable Ulrich bundle for this embedding: namely the sheaf $B^1_X$ of locally exact differentials twisted by $Ø_X(1)$ given by this embedding and in particular there exist ordinary varieties of any dimension which carry Ulrich bundles. In higher dimensions, assuming $X$ is Frobenius split variety I show that $B^1_X$ is an ACM bundle and if $X$ is also a Calabi-Yau variety and $p>2$ then $B^1_X$ is not a direct sum of line bundles. In particular I show that $B^1_…
We prove that the neutral component of the group of derived autoequivalences of a smooth projective variety is the semi-direct product of the neutral component of its Picard group and its group of automorphisms. We use this result to prove several results concerning pairs of derived equivalent varieties.
The Gauss map of a projective variety $X \subset \mathbb{P}^N$ is a rational map from $X$ to a Grassmann variety. In positive characteristic, we show the following results. (1) For given projective varieties $F$ and $Y$, we construct a projective variety $X$ whose Gauss map has $F$ as its general fiber and has $Y$ as its image. More generally, we give such construction for families of varieties over $Y$ instead of fixed $F$. (2) At least in the case when the characteristic is not equal to $2$, any inseparable field extension appears as the extension induced from the Gauss map of some $X$.
We give a class of examples of vector bundles on a relative smooth projective curve over Spec Z such that for infinitely many prime reductions the bundle has a Frobenius descent, but the restriction to the generic fiber in characteristic zero is not semistable. In the third section of the paper we prove for a large class of varieties (including abelian varieties) that any vector bundle with this Frobenius descent property is generically semistable.
We show that the degree of Gauss maps on abelian varieties is semicontinuous in families, and we study its jump loci. As an application we obtain that in the case of theta divisors this degree answers the Schottky problem. Our proof computes the degree of Gauss maps by specialization of Lagrangian cycles on the cotangent bundle. We also get similar results for the intersection cohomology of varieties with a finite morphism to an abelian variety; it follows that many components of Andreotti-Mayer loci, including the Schottky locus, are part of the stratification of the moduli space of ppav's de…
We study the $m$-th Gauss map in the sense of F.~L.~Zak of a projective variety $X \subset \mathbb{P}^N$ over an algebraically closed field in any characteristic. For all integer $m$ with $n:=\dim(X) \leq m < N$, we show that the contact locus on $X$ of a general tangent $m$-plane is a linear variety if the $m$-th Gauss map is separable. We also show that for smooth $X$ with $n < N-2$, the $(n+1)$-th Gauss map is birational if it is separable, unless $X$ is the Segre embedding $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^n \subset \mathbb{P}^{2n-1}$. This is related to L. Ein's classification of varieties …
We study expanding maps and shrinking maps of subvarieties of Grassmann varieties in arbitrary characteristic. The shrinking map was studied independently by Landsberg and Piontkowski in order to characterize Gauss images. To develop their method, we introduce the expanding map, which is a dual notion of the shrinking map and is a generalization of the Gauss map. Then we give a characterization of separable Gauss maps and their images, which yields results for the following topics: (1) Linearity of general fibers of separable Gauss maps; (2) Generalization of the characterization of Gauss imag…
In this paper, we investigate, for varieties over $\mathbb C$ with trivial group of $0$-cycles, the gap between essential $\mathrm{CH}_0$-dimension $2$ and essential $\mathrm{CH}_0$-dimension $0$. In particular, we present sufficient (and necessary) conditions for a variety with trivial group of $0$-cycles and essential $\mathrm{CH}_0$-dimension $\leq 2$ to have, in fact, essential $\mathrm{CH}_0$-dimension $0$.