We discuss the conjecture of Buchstaber and Krichever that their multi-dimensional vector addition formula for Baker-Akhiezer functions characterizes Jacobians among principally polarized abelian varieties, and prove that it is indeed a weak characterization, i.e. that it is true up to additional components, or true precisely under a general position assumption. We also show that this addition formula is equivalent to Gunning's multisecant formula for the Kummer variety.
We then use Buchstaber-Krichever's computation of the coefficients in the addition formula to obtain cubic relations among theta functions, which (weakly) characterize the locus of hyperelliptic Jacobians among irreducible abelian varieties. In genus 3 our equations are equivalent to the vanishing of one theta-null, and thus are known classically by work of Mumford and Poor, but already for genus 4 they appear to be new.
We study the stable hyperelliptic locus, i.e. the closure, in the Deligne- Mumford moduli space of stable curves, of the locus of smooth hyperelliptic curves. Working on a suitable blowup of the relative Hilbert scheme (of degree 2) associated to a family of stable curves, we construct a bundle map ('degree-2 Brill-Noether') from a modification of the Hodge bundle to a tautological bundle, whose degeneracy locus is the natural lift of the stable hyperelliptic locus plus a simple residual scheme. Using intersection theory on Hilbert schemes and Fulton-Macpherson residual intersection theory, th…
We prove that a certain Brill-Noether locus over a non-hyperelliptic curve $C$ of genus 4, is isomorphic to the \textit{Donagi-Izadi cubic threefold} in the case when the pencils of the two trigonal line bundles of $C$ coincide.
Let $g \geq 2$ and let the Torelli map denote the map sending a genus $g$ curve to its principally polarized Jacobian. We show that the restriction of the Torelli map to the hyperelliptic locus is an immersion in characteristic not $2$. In characteristic $2$, we show the Torelli map restricted to the hyperelliptic locus fails to be an immersion because it is generically inseparable; moreover, the induced map on tangent spaces has kernel of dimension $g-2$ at every point.
We compute the class of the closure of the locus of hyperelliptic curves in the moduli space of stable genus-3 curves in terms of the tautological class $λ$ and the boundary classes $δ_0$ and $δ_1$. The expression of this class is known, but here we compute it directly, by means of Porteous Formula, without resorting to blowups or test curves.
We construct an infinite number of Shimura curves contained in the locus of hyperelliptic Jacobians of genus 3. In the opposite direction, we show that in genus 3 the only possible non-complete (in the moduli space of abelian threefolds) Kuga curves contained in the hyperelliptic locus have the same degeneration data as that of the examples we construct. The locus of genus 3 hyperelliptic Jacobians is a divisor within the moduli space of principally polarized abelian threefolds, and our result demonstrates the techniques we develop more generally for dealing with Shimura curves contained withi…
We prove the non-existence of Shimura subvarieties of positive dimension contained generically in the hyperelliptic Torelli locus for curves of genus at least 8, which is an analogue of Oort's conjecture in the hyperelliptic case.
We provide a closed form expression for linear Hodge integrals on the hyperelliptic locus. Specifically, we find a succinct combinatorial formula for all intersection numbers on the hyperelliptic locus with one $λ$-class, and powers of a $ψ$-class pulled back along the branch map. This is achieved by using Atiyah-Bott localization on a stack of stable maps into the orbifold $[\mathbb{P}^1/\mathbb{Z}_2]$.
We describe explicitly all hyperelliptic limits of quadrics through smooth canonical curves of genus $g$ in ${\mathbb P}^{g-1}$. Also, we construct an open embedding of the blow up of a ${\rm PGL}_g$-bundle over the moduli space of curves of genus $g$ along the hyperelliptic locus into the blow up of the canonical Hilbert scheme of ${\mathbb P}^{g-1}$ along the closure of the locus of canonical ribbons, which are certain double thickenings of rational normal curves introduced and studied by Bayer and Eisenbud.
An exceptional point in the moduli space of compact Riemann surfaces is a unique surface class whose full automorphism group acts with a triangular signature. A surface admitting a conformal involution with quotient an elliptic curve is called elliptic-hyperelliptic; one admitting an anticonformal involution is called symmetric. In this paper, we determine, up to topological conjugacy, the full group of conformal and anticonformal automorphisms of a symmetric exceptional point in the elliptic-hyperelliptic locus. We determine the number of ovals of any symmetry of such a surface. We show that …
It is well known that, fixed an even, unimodular, positive definite quadratic form, one can construct a modular form in each genus; this form is called the theta series associated to the quadratic form. Varying the quadratic form, one obtains the ring of stable modular forms. We show that the differences of theta series associated to specific pairs of quadratic forms vanish on the locus of hyperelliptic Jacobians in each genus. In our examples, the quadratic forms have rank 24, 32 and 48. The proof relies on a geometric result about the boundary of the Satake compactification of the hyperellip…
We study genus 3 hyperelliptic curves which have an extra involution. The locus $Ł_3$ of these curves is a 3-dimensional subvariety in the genus 3 hyperelliptic moduli $\H_3$. We find a birational parametrization of this locus by affine 3-space. For every moduli point $\p \in \H_3$ such that $|\Aut (\p)|>2$, the field of moduli is a field of definition. We provide a rational model of the curve over its field of moduli for all moduli points $\p \in \H_3$ such that $|\Aut(\p)|>4$. This is the first time that such a rational model of these curves appears in the literature.
Genus $g$ Torelli space is the moduli space of genus $g$ curves of compact type equipped with a homology framing. The hyperelliptic locus is a closed analytic subvariety consisting of finitely many mutually isomorphic components. We use properties of the hyperelliptic Torelli group to show that when $g\geq 3$ these components do not have the homotopy type of a finite CW complex. Specifically, we show that the second rational homology of each component is infinite-dimensional. We give a more detailed description of the topological features of these components when $g=3$ using properties of genu…
We study genus $g$ hyperelliptic curves with reduced automorphism group $A_5$ and give equations $y^2=f(x)$ for such curves in both cases where $f(x)$ is a decomposable polynomial in $x^2$ or $x^5$. For any fixed genus the locus of such curves is a rational variety. We show that for every point in this locus the field of moduli is a field of definition. Moreover, there exists a rational model $y^2=F(x)$ or $y^2=x F(x)$ of the curve over its field of moduli where $F(x)$ can be chosen to be decomposable in $x^2$ or $x^5$. While similar equations have been given in Bujalance, Cirre, Gamboa and Gr…
The locus of genus-two curves with n marked Weierstrass points has codimension n inside the moduli space of genus-two curves with n marked points, for n<=6. It is well known that the class of the closure of the divisor obtained for n=1 spans an extremal ray of the cone of effective divisor classes. We generalize this result for all n: we show that the class of the closure of the locus of genus-two curves with n marked Weierstrass points spans an extremal ray of the cone of effective classes of codimension n, for n<=6. A related construction produces extremal nef curve classes in moduli spaces …
We prove that the moduli space of Calabi-Yau 3-folds coming from eight planes of $P^3$ in general positions is not modular. In fact we show the stronger statement that the Zariski closure of the monodromy group is actually the whole $Sp(20,R)$. We construct an interesting submoduli, which we call \emph{hyperelliptic locus}, over which the weight 3 $Q$-Hodge structure is the third wedge product of the weight 1 $Q$-Hodge structure on the corresponding hyperelliptic curve. The non-extendibility of the hyperelliptic locus inside the moduli space of a genuine Shimura subvariety is proved.
Let $C$ be a hyperelliptic curve embedded in its Jacobian $J$ via an Abel-Jacobi map. We compute the scheme structure of the Hilbert scheme component of $\textrm{Hilb}_J$ containing the Abel-Jacobi curve as a point. We relate the result to the ramification (and to the fibres) of the Torelli morphism $\mathcal M_g\rightarrow \mathcal A_g$ along the hyperelliptic locus. As an application, we determine the scheme structure of the moduli space of Picard sheaves (introduced by Mukai) on a hyperelliptic Jacobian.
We study the locus of tropical hyperelliptic curves inside the moduli space of tropical curves of genus g. We define a harmonic morphism of metric graphs and prove that a metric graph is hyperelliptic if and only if it admits a harmonic morphism of degree 2 to a metric tree. This generalizes the work of Baker and Norine on combinatorial graphs to the metric case. We then prove that the locus of 2-edge-connected genus g tropical hyperelliptic curves is a (2g-1)-dimensional stacky polyhedral fan whose maximal cells are in bijection with trees on g-1 vertices with maximum valence 3. Finally, we s…
The Eckardt hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^{19}$ parameterizes smooth cubic surfaces with an Eckardt point, which is a point common to three of the $27$ lines on a smooth cubic surface. We describe the cubic surfaces lying on the singular locus of the model of this hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^4$, obtained via restriction to the space of cubic surfaces possessing a so-called Sylvester form. We prove that inside the moduli of cubics, the singular locus corresponds to a reducible surface with two rational irreducible components intersecting along two rational curves. The two curves intersect in two …
We show that the infinitesimal deformations of the Brill--Noether locus $W_d$ attached to a smooth non-hyperelliptic curve $C$ are in one-to-one correspondence with the deformations of $C$. As an application, we prove that if a Jacobian $J$ deforms together with a minimal cohomology class out the Jacobian locus, then $J$ is hyperelliptic. In particular, this provides an evidence to a conjecture of Debarre on the classification of ppavs carrying a minimal cohomology class. Finally, we also study simultaneous deformations of Fano surfaces of lines and intermediate Jacobians.
We provide a classification of developable cubic hypersurfaces in $\mathbb P^4$. Using the correspondence between forms of degree $3$ on $\mathbb P^4$ and Artinian Gorenstein $\mathbb K$-algebras, given by Macaulay-Matlis duality, we describe the locus in ${\rm GOR}(1,5,5,1)$ corresponding to those algebras which satisfy the Strong Lefschetz property.
We prove that the hyperelliptic Torelli group is generated by Dehn twists about separating curves that are preserved by the hyperelliptic involution. This verifies a conjecture of Hain. The hyperelliptic Torelli group can be identified with the kernel of the Burau representation evaluated at t=-1 and also the fundamental group of the branch locus of the period mapping, and so we obtain analogous generating sets for those. One application is that each component in Torelli space of the locus of hyperelliptic curves becomes simply connected when curves of compact type are added.
In this paper we study the infinitesimal deformations of a trigonal curve that preserve the trigonal series and such that the associate infinitesimal variation of Hodge structure (IVHS) is of rank 1. We show that if the genus g is greater or equal to 8 or g=6,7 and the curve is Maroni general, this locus is zero dimensional. Moreover, we complete a result of Naranjo and Pirola. We show in fact that if the genus g is greater or equal to 6, the hyperelliptic locus is the only 2g-1-dimensional sub-locus Y of the moduli space of curves of genus g, such that for the general element [C] in Y, its Ja…
In this paper we study properties of the locus of second type lines of a general cubic threefold and fourfold. By analysing the geometry of the Fano scheme of lines of the Fermat cubic fourfold and in particular giving an explicit description of the locus of second type lines, we deduce that the Voisin map is birational over the second type locus. For a general cubic threefold, by studying properties of the second type locus again, we compute that various natural geometric monodromy groups are the full symmetric group.
Let $\cM_r$ denote the moduli space of semi-stable rank-$r$ vector bundles with trivial determinant over a smooth projective curve $C$ of genus $g$. In this paper we study the base locus $\cB_r \subset \cM_r$ of the linear system of the determinant line bundle $\cL$ over $\cM_r$, i.e., the set of semi-stable rank-$r$ vector bundles without theta divisor. We construct base points in $\cB_{g+2}$ over any curve $C$, and base points in $\cB_4$ over any hyperelliptic curve.
In this paper, we show that there exist families of curves (defined over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $p >2$) whose Jacobians have interesting $p$-torsion. For example, for every $0 \leq f \leq g$, we find the dimension of the locus of hyperelliptic curves of genus $g$ with $p$-rank at most $f$. We also produce families of curves so that the $p$-torsion of the Jacobian of each fibre contains multiple copies of the group scheme $α_p$. The method is to study curves which admit an action by $(\ZZ/2)^n$ so that the quotient is a projective line. As a result, some of these fa…
This paper is concerned with the geometry of the Gorenstein locus of the Hilbert scheme of $14$ points on $\mathbb{A}^6$. This scheme has two components: the smoothable one and an exceptional one. We prove that the latter is smooth and identify the intersection of components as a vector bundle over the Iliev-Ranestad divisor in the space of cubic fourfolds. The ninth secant variety of the triple Veronese reembedding lies inside the Iliev-Ranestad divisor. We point out that this secant variety is set-theoretically a codimension two complete intersection and discuss the degrees of its equations.
Using a part of XJC-correspondence by Pirio and Russo, we classify cubic forms $f$ whose Hessian matrices induce matrix factorizations of themselves. When it defines a reduced hypersurface, it satisfies the "secant-singularity" correspondence, that is, it coincides with the secant locus of its singular locus. In particular, when $f$ is irreducible, its singular locus is either one of four Severi varieties.
We study the locus of intermediate Jacobians of cubic threefolds within the moduli space of complex principally polarized abelian fivefolds, and its generalization to arbitrary genus - the locus of abelian varieties with a singular odd two-torsion point on the theta divisor. Assuming that this locus has expected codimension (which we show to be true for genus up to 5), we compute the class of this locus, and of is closure in the perfect cone toroidal compactification, in the Chow, homology, and the tautological ring. We work out the cases of genus up to 5 in detail, obtaining explicit expressi…
We show that if a cubic hypersurface with positive dual defect over the complex number field is not a cone, then either the hypersurface coincides with the secant variety of the singular locus, or the hypersurface contains a linear subvariety of dimension greater than the dual defect such that the intersection of the singular locus and a general contact locus is contained in the linear subvariety.
We find an asymptotic description of the period locus of simply connected Jacobian elliptic surfaces and of the period locus of hyperelliptic curves. The two descriptions are essentially the same, and are given by the alkanes of organic chemistry.
Motivated by results of Mestre and Voisin, in this note we mainly consider abelian varieties isogenous to hyperelliptic Jacobians In the first part we prove that a very general hyperelliptic Jacobian of genus $g\ge 4$ is not isogenous to a non-hyperelliptic Jacobian. As a consequence we obtain that the Intermediate Jacobian of a very general cubic threefold is not isogenous to a Jacobian. Another corollary tells that the Jacobian of a very general $d$-gonal curve of genus $g \ge 4$ is not isogenous to a different Jacobian. In the second part we consider a closed subvariety $\mathcal Y \subset …
In recent algorithms that use deformation in order to compute the number of points on varieties over a finite field, certain differential equations of matrices over p-adic fields emerge. We present a novel strategy to solve this kind of equations in a memory efficient way. The main application is an algorithm requiring quasi-cubic time and only quadratic memory in the parameter n, that solves the following problem: for E a hyperelliptic curve of genus g over a finite field of extension degree n and small characteristic, compute its zeta function. This improves substantially upon Kedlaya's resu…
We extend our classification of special Cremona transformations whose base locus has dimension at most three to the case when the target space is replaced by a (locally) factorial complete intersection.
A famous result of B. Crauder and S. Katz (1989) concerns the classification of special Cremona transformations whose base locus has dimension at most two. Furthermore, they also proved that a special Cremona transformation with base locus of dimension three has to be one of the following: 1) a quinto-quintic transformation of $\mathbb{P}^5$; 2) a cubo-quintic transformation of $\mathbb{P}^6$; or 3) a quadro-quintic transformation of $\mathbb{P}^8$. Special Cremona transformations as in case 1) have been classified by L. Ein and N. Shepherd-Barron (1989), while in our previous work (2013), we …
For a general cubic fourfold $X\subset\mathbb{P}^5$ with Fano scheme of lines $F$, we prove a number of properties of the universal family of lines $I\to F$ and various subloci. We first describe the moduli and ramification theory of the genus four fibration $p:I\to X$ and explore its relation to a birational model of $F$ in $I$. The main part of the paper is devoted to describing the locus $V\subset F$ of triple lines, i.e., the fixed locus of the Voisin map $ϕ:F\dashrightarrow F$, in particular proving it is an irreducible projective singular surface of class $21\mathrm{c}_2(\mathcal{U}_F)$ …
This paper extends joint work with R. Friedman to show that the closure of the locus of intermediate Jacobians of smooth cubic threefolds, in the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties (ppav's) of dimension five, is an irreducible component of the locus of ppav's whose theta divisor has a point of multiplicity three or more. This paper also gives a sharp bound on the multiplicity of a point on the theta divisor of an irreducible ppav of dimension less than or equal to five; for dimensions four and five, this improves the bound due to J. Kollár, R. Smith-R. Varley, and L. Ein-R…
In the 80's M. Cornalba and J. Harris discovered a relation among the Hodge class and the boundary classes in the Picard group with rational coefficients of the moduli space of stable, hyperelliptic curves. They proved the relation by computing degrees of the classes involved for suitable one-parameter families. In the present article we show that their relation can be obtained as the class of an appropriate, geometrically meaningful empty set, thus conforming with C. Faber's general philosophy to finding relations among tautological classes in the Chow ring of the moduli space of curves. The …
It is well-known that abelian varieties are projective, and so that there exist explicit polynomial and rational functions which define both the variety and its group law. It is however difficult to find any explicit polynomial and rational functions describing these varieties or their group laws in dimensions greater than two. One exception can be found in Mumford's classic "Lectures on Theta", where he describes how to obtain an explicit model for hyperelliptic Jacobians as the union of several affine pieces described as the vanishing locus of explicit polynomial equations. In this article, …
The modular variety of non singular and complete hyperelliptic curves with level-two structure of genus 3 is a 5-dimensional quasi projective variety which admits several standard compactifications. The first one, X, comes from the realization of this variety as a sub-variety of the Siegel modular variety of level two and genus three .We will be to describe the equations of X in a suitable projective embedding and its Hilbert function. It will turn out that X is normal. A further model comes from geometric invariant theory using so-called semistable degenerated point configurations in (P^1)^8 …
We compute the class of the locus in M_g of curves having a pencil with two unspecified triple ramification points. This is the first example of a geometric divisor on M_g which is not the pull-back of a divisor on the moduli space of pseudo-stable curves. This space, in which elliptic tails are replaced by cusps, appears as a result of the first divisorial contraction in the minimal model program for M_g. In particular, we show that our divisor picks-up the locus of Fermat cubic tails when restricted to the boundary divisor of elliptic tails. We also give various enumerative applications conc…
For a cubic rational function with coefficients in a non-archimedean field $K$ whose residue characteristic is $0$ or greater than $3$, there are $2$ possibilities for the shape of its Berkovich ramification locus, considered as an endomorphism of the Berkovich projective line: one is the connected hull of all the critical points, and the other is consisting of $2$ disjoint segments. In this paper, we list up all the possible forms of cubic rational functions and calculate their ramification loci.
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.
It is well known that every smooth cubic threefold is the zero locus of the Pfaffian of a 6 x 6 skew-symmetric matrix of linear forms in P^4. To compactify the space of such Pfaffian representations of a given cubic and to study the construction in families as well as for singular or reducible cubics, it is thus natural to consider the incidence correspondence of Pfaffian representations inside the product of the space of semistable skew-symmetric 6 x 6 matrices of linear forms in P^4 and the space of cubics. Here we describe concretely the irreducible component of this incidence correspondenc…
We propose a Las Vegas probabilistic algorithm to compute the zeta function of a genus-3 hyperelliptic curve defined over a finite field $\mathbb F_q$, with explicit real multiplication by an order $\mathbb Z[η]$ in a totally real cubic field. Our main result states that this algorithm requires an expected number of $\widetilde O((\log q)^6)$ bit-operations, where the constant in the $\widetilde O()$ depends on the ring $\mathbb Z[η]$ and on the degrees of polynomials representing the endomorphism $η$. As a proof-of-concept, we compute the zeta function of a curve defined over a 64-bit prime f…
Let C be a generic smooth curve of genus g\geqslant 4. We study normal functions and infinitesimal invariants associated to Ceresa cycles W_{k}-W_{k}^{-}, k=2,...,g-2. We show how they can be obtained from the normal function associated to the basic cycle C-C^{-} and, for k=2, we also explicitely determine the zero locus of the infinitesimal invariant. For C hyperelliptic of genus g=3, we define the K-theoretic counterpart of W_{2}-W_{2}^{-}, generalizing a construction of A. Collino, and show that it is indecomposable.
