We show that the linear syzygy spaces of elliptic normal curves, their secant varieties and of bielliptic canonical curves are spanned by geometric syzygies.
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.
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 $L=K_C$.
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 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.
The Green-Lazarsfeld secant conjecture predicts that the syzygies of a curve of sufficiently high degree are controlled by its special secants. We prove this conjecture for all curves of Clifford index at least two and not bielliptic and for all line bundles of a certain degree. Our proof is based on a classic result of Martens and Mumford on Brill-Noether varieties and on a simple vanishing criterion that comes from the interpretation of syzygies through symmetric products of curves.
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}.
Under certain effective positivity conditions, we show that the secant variety to a smooth variety satisfies $N_{3,p}$. For smooth curves, we provide the best possible effective bound on the degree $d$ of the embedding, $d\geq 2g+3+p$.
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 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.
We prove the existence of defective secant varieties of three-factor and four-factor Segre-Veronese varieties embedded in certain multi-degree. These defective secant varieties were previously unknown and are of importance in the classification of defective secant varieties of Segre-Veronese varieties with three or more factors.
We study syzygies of abelian varieties via the methods of Caucci and Ito based on computations of cohomological rank functions. We provide some strong evidences to a conjecture of Ito and Lozovanu.
Asymptotic syzygies of a normal crossing variety follow the same vanishing behavior as one of its smooth components, unless there is a cohomological obstruction arising from how the smooth components intersect each other. In that case, we compute the asymptotic syzygies in terms of the cohomology of the simplicial complex associated to the normal crossing variety. We combine our results on normal crossing varieties with knowledge of degenerations of certain smooth projective varieties to obtain some results on asymptotic syzygies of those smooth projective varieties.
Motivated by the study of the secant variety of the Segre-Veronese variety we propose a general framework to analyze properties of the secant varieties of toric embeddings of affine spaces defined by simplicial complexes. We prove that every such secant is toric, which gives a way to use combinatorial tools to study singularities. We focus on the Segre-Veronese variety for which we completely classify their secants that give Gorenstein or $\mathbb Q$-Gorenstein varieties. We conclude providing the explicit description of the singular locus.
Over a field of characteristic $0$, we prove that for each $r \geq 0$ there exists a constant $C(r)$ so that the prime ideal of the $r$th secant variety of any Plücker-embedded Grassmannian ${\bf Gr}(d,n)$ is generated by polynomials of degree at most $C(r)$, where $C(r)$ is independent of $d$ and $n$. This bounded generation ultimately reduces to proving a poset is noetherian, we develop a new method to do this. We then translate the structure we develop to the language of functor categories to prove the $i$th syzygy module of the coordinate ring of the $r$th secant variety of any Plücker-emb…
We define many new examples of modules of equations for secant varieties of Segre varieties that generalize Strassen's commutation equations. Our modules of equations are obtained by constructing subspaces of matrices from tensors that satisfy various commutation properties.
The purpose of the paper is to give a sharp asymptotic description of the weights that appear in the syzygies of a toric variety. We prove that as the positivity of the embedding increases, in any strand of syzygies, torus weights after normalization stabilize to the same fixed shape that we explicitly specify.
We study the syzygies of secant ideals of Veronese subrings of a fixed commutative graded algebra over a field of characteristic 0. One corollary is that the degrees of the minimal generators of the ith syzygy module of the coordinate ring of the rth secant variety of any Veronese embedding of a projective scheme X can be bounded by a constant that only depends on i, r, and X, and not on the choice of the Veronese embedding.
We use the language of multiplier ideals in order to relate the syzygies of an abelian variety in a suitable embedding with the local positivity of the line bundle inducing that embedding. This extends to higher syzygies a result of Hwang and To on projective normality.
We give an almost asymptotically sharp bound for the non secant defectiveness and identifiability of Segre-Veronese varieties. We also provide new examples of defective Segre-Veronese varieties.
The secant varieties of Severi varieties provide special examples of (singular) cubic hypersurfaces. An interesting question asks when a given cubic hypersurface is projectively equivalent to a secant cubic hypersurface. Inspired by the ''geometric'' Torelli theorem for smooth cubic hypersurfaces due to F. Charles, we study the geometry of lines on secant cubics and describe the Fano variety of lines. Then we verify the ''geometric'' Torelli theorem for the case of secant cubics. Namely, a cubic hypersurface is isomorphic to a secant cubic if and only if their Fano varieties of lines are isomo…
We identify Feigin-Odesskii brackets $q_{n,1}(C)$, associated with a normal elliptic curve of degree $n$, $C\subset {\mathbb P}^{n-1}$, with the skew-symmetric $n\times n$ matrix of quadratic forms introduced by Fisher in arXiv:1510.04327 in connection with some minimal free resolutions related to the secant varieties of $C$. On the other hand, we show that for odd $n$, the generators of the ideal of the secant variety of $C$ of codimension $3$ give a Cremona transformation of ${\mathbb P}^{n-1}$, generalizing the quadro-cubic Cremona transformation of ${\mathbb P}^4$. We identify this transfo…
We show how a natural constant introduced by Jiang and Pareschi for a polarized abelian variety encodes information about the syzygies of the section ring of the polarization. As a particular case this gives a quick and characteristic-free proof of Lazarsfeld's conjecture on syzygies of abelian varieties, originally proved by Pareschi in characteristic zero.
This paper studies the dimension of secant varieties to Segre varieties. The problem is cast both in the setting of tensor algebra and in the setting of algebraic geometry. An inductive procedure is built around the ideas of successive specializations of points and projections. This reduces the calculation of the dimension of the secant variety in a high dimensional case to a sequence of calculations of partial secant varieties in low dimensional cases. As applications of the technique: We give a complete classification of defective $t$-secant varieties to Segre varieties for t < 7. We general…
In this paper we prove some general results on secant defective varieties. Then we focus on the 4--dimensional case and we give the full classification of secant defective 4--folds. This paper has been inspired by classical work by G. Scorza,
This paper explores the dimensions of higher secant varieties to Segre-Veronese varieties. The main goal of this paper is to introduce two different inductive techniques. These techniques enable one to reduce the computation of the dimension of the secant variety in a high dimensional case to the computation of the dimensions of secant varieties in low dimensional cases. As an application of these inductive approaches, we will prove non-defectivity of secant varieties of certain two-factor Segre-Veronese varieties. We also use these methods to give a complete classification of defective s-th S…
The geometric and algebraic properties of smooth projective varieties with 1-regular structure sheaf are well understood, and the complete classification of these varieties is a classical result. The aim of this paper is to study the next case: smooth projective varieties with 2-regular structure sheaf. First, we give a classification of such varieties using adjunction mappings. Next, under suitable conditions, we study the syzygies of section rings of those varieties to understand the structure of the Betti tables, and show a sharp bound for Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity.
This paper studies the defectivity of secant varieties of Segre varieties. We prove that there exists an asymptotic lower estimate for the greater non-defective secant variety (without filling the ambient space) of any given Segre variety. In particular, we prove that the ratio between the greater non-defective secant variety of a Segre variety and its expected rank is lower bounded by a value depending just on the number of factors of the Segre variety. Moreover, in the final section, we present some results obtained by explicit computation, proving the non-defectivity of all the secant varie…
We generalize the classical Terracini's Lemma to higher order osculating spaces to secant varieties. As an application, we address with the so-called Horace method the case of the $d$-Veronese embedding of the projective 3-space.
We generalize Zak's theorems on tangencies and on linear normality as well as Zak's definition and classification of Severi varieties. In particular we find sharp lower bounds for the dimension of higher secant varieties of a given variety X under suitable regularity assumption on X, and we classify varieties for which the bound is attained.
In this paper we discuss the dimensions of the (higher) secant varieties to the Grassmann varieties, embedded via the Plucker embeddings. We use Terracini's Lemma and the duality in the exterior algebra of a finite dimensional vector space to translate the problem into that of finding the dimension of a graded piece of a " fat" ideal in the exterior algebra. Among other things, our methods prove that (apart from the chordal varieties to the Grassmannians of lines) all the chordal varieties of Grassmannians have the expected dimension. We also discuss some Grassmannians with deficient secant va…
We show how to use information about the equations defining secant varieties to smooth projective varieties in order to construct a natural collection of birational transformations. These were first constructed as flips in the case of curves by M. Thaddeus via Geometric Invariant Theory, and the first flip in the sequence was constructed by the author for varieties of arbitrary dimension in an earlier paper. We expose the finer structure of a second flip; again for varieties of arbitrary dimension. We also prove a result on the cubic generation of the secant variety and give some conjectures o…
It is shown that an irreducible cubic hypersurface with nonzero Hessian and smooth singular locus is the secant variety of a Severi variety if and only if its Lie algebra of infinitesimal linear automorphisms admits a nonzero prolongation.
In this paper, we show that the secant variety to a smooth projective variety embedded by a sufficiently positive line bundle is normal. As an application, we deduce that the secant variety to a general canonical curve of genus at least 7 is normal.
Let $X_{m,n}$ be the Segre-Veronese variety $\mathbb{P}^m \times \mathbb{P}^n$ embedded by the morphism given by $\mathcal{O}(1,2)$. In this paper, we provide two functions $\underline{s}(m,n)\le \bar{s}(m,n)$ such that the $s^{\mathrm{th}}$ secant variety of $X_{m,n}$ has the expected dimension if $s \leq \underline{s}(m,n)$ or $ \bar{s}(m,n) \leq s$. We also present a conjecturally complete list of defective secant varieties of such Segre-Veronese varieties.
The Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of varieties of degree r and dimension n in the r-dimensional projective space that have an extremal secant line, is at least d-r+n+1. We classify these varieties and show that their regularity is exactly d-r+n+1, as predicted by the regularity conjecture.
New classes of modules of equations for secant varieties of Veronese varieties are defined using representation theory and geometry. Some old modules of equations (catalecticant minors) are revisited to determine when they are sufficient to give scheme-theoretic defining equations. An algorithm to decompose a general ternary quintic as the sum of seven fifth powers is given as an illustration of our methods. Our new equations and results about them are put into a larger context by introducing vector bundle techniques for finding equations of secant varieties in general. We include a few homoge…
We consider the Grassmannian $\mathbb{G}r(k,n)$ of $(k+1)$-dimensional linear subspaces of $V_n=H^0({¶^1},Ø_{¶^1}(n))$. We define $\frak{X}_{k,r,d}$ as the classifying space of the $k$-dimensional linear systems of degree $n$ on $¶^1$ whose basis realize a fixed number of polynomial relations of fixed degree, say a fixed number of syzygies of a certain degree. The first result of this paper is the computation of the dimension of $\frak{X}_{k,r,d}$. In the second part we make a link between $\frak{X}_{k,r,d}$ and the Poncelet varieties. In particular, we prove that the existence of linear syzyg…
We study the singularities of the secant variety $Σ(X,L)$ associated to a smooth variety $X$ embedded by a sufficiently positive adjoint bundle $L$. We show that $Σ(X,L)$ is always Du Bois singular. Examples of secant varieties with worse singularities when $L$ has weak positivity are provided. We also give a necessary and sufficient condition for $Σ(X, L)$ to have rational singularities.
Let X be a smooth complex projective variety of dimension n and let A be an ample and basepoint free divisor. We prove $K_X+mA$ satisfies property $N_p$ for $m\geqslant n+1+p$. We also show the graded ring of sections $R(X, K_X+mA)$ is Koszul for $m\geqslant n+2$.
Let $S_h$ be the even pure spinors variety of a complex vector space $V$ of even dimension $2h$ endowed with a non degenerate quadratic form $Q$ and let $σ_k(S_h) $ be the $k$-secant variety of $S_h$. We decribe a probabilistic algorithm which computes the complex dimension of $σ_k(S_h) $. Then, by using an inductive argument, we get our main result: $σ_3(S_h) $ has the expected dimension except when $h\in \{7,8\} $. Also we provide theoretical arguments which prove that $S_7$ has a defective 3-secant variety and $S_8$ has defective 3-secant and 4-secant varieties.
We study the dimension of the higher secant varieties $X^s$ of ${\Bbb X} = {\Bbb P}^{n_1}\times ...\times {\Bbb P}^{n_t}$ embedded the morphism given by ${\cal O}_{\Bbb X}({a_1,...,a_t})$. We call it a {\it Segre-Veronese variety} and the embedding a {\it Segre-Veronese embedding}. In several cases (e.g. for 3 factors {\Bbb P}^{1}, or when $s$ is small) we show that $X^s$ has the expected dimension except for a few cases. A list of examples of defective $X^s$'s is given.
Cactus varieties are a generalization of secant varieties. They are defined using linear spans of arbitrary finite schemes of bounded length, while secant varieties use only isolated reduced points. In particular, any secant variety is always contained in the respective cactus variety, and, except in a few initial cases, the inclusion is strict. It is known that lots of natural criteria that test membership in secant varieties are actually only tests for membership in cactus varieties. In this article, we propose the first techniques to distinguish actual secant variety from the cactus variety…