Zero-schemes on smooth complex projective varieties, forcing all elements of ample and free linear systems to be reducible are studied. Relationships among the minimal length of such zero-schemes, the positivity of the line bundle associated with the linear system, and the dimension of the variety are established. A generalization to higher dimension subschemes is studied in the last section.
The bad locus and the rude locus of an ample and base point free linear system on a smooth complex projective variety are introduced and studied. The bad locus is defined as the set of points that force divisors through them to be reducible. The rude locus is defined as the set of points such that divisors that are singular at them are forced to be reducible. The existence of a nonmempty bad locus is shown to be exclusively a two dimensional phenomenon. Polarized surfaces of small degree, or whose degree is the square of a prime, with nonempty bad loci are completely classified. Several explic…
The bad locus of a base-point free linear system L on a normal complex projective variety X is defined as the subset B(L) of X of points that are not contained in any irreducible and reduced member of L. In this paper we provide a geometric description of such locus in terms of the morphism defined by L. In particular, assume that the dimension of X is at least 2, and that L is the complete linear system associated to an ample and spanned line bundle. It is known that in this case B(L) is empty unless X is a surface. Then we prove that, when the latter occurs, B(L) is not empty if and only if …
We generalize the Gaffney-Lazarsfeld theorem on higher ramification loci of branched coverings of $\mathbb{P}^n$ to homogeneous spaces with Picard number one.
In this paper we deal with Brill-Noether theory for higher-rank sheaves on a polarized nodal reducible curve $(C,\underline{w})$ following the ideas of [arXiv:alg-geom/9511003v1]. We study the Brill-Noether loci of $\underline{w}$-stable depth one sheaves on $C$ having rank $r$ on all irreducible components and having small slope. In analogy with what happens in the smooth case, we prove that these loci are closely related to BGN extensions. Moreover, we produce irreducible components of the expected dimension for these Brill-Noether loci.
In this paper, we prove a new expected dimension formula for certain rank two Brill-Noether loci with fixed special determinant. This answers a question asked by Osserman and also leads to a new and much simpler proof of a theorem of Osserman. Our result generalizes the well-known result by Bertram, Feinberg and independently Mukai on expected dimension of rank two Brill-Noether loci with canonical determinant and partially verifies a conjecture (in rank two) of Grzegorczyk and Newstead on coherent systems.
In this paper we construct Shimura subvarieties of dimension bigger than one of the moduli space of polarised abelian varieties of a given dimension, which are generically contained in the Pym loci of (ramified) double covers. The idea is to adapt the techniques already used to construct Shimura curves in the Prym loci to the higher dimensional case, namely to use families of Galois covers of the projective line. The case of abelian covers is treated in detail, since in this case it is possible to make explicit computations that allow to verify a sufficient condition for such a family to yield…
In this note we introduce higher order polar loci as natural generalizations of the classical polar loci, replacing the role of tangent spaces by that of higher order osculating spaces. The close connection between polar loci and dual varieties carries over to a connection between higher order polar loci and higher order dual varieties. We generalize the duality between the degrees of polar classes of a variety and those of its dual variety to varieties that are reflexive to a higher order. In particular, the degree of the top (highest codimension) polar class of order k is equal to the degree…
Given a vector bundle $V$ over a curve $X$, we define and study a surjective rational map $\mathrm{Hilb}^d (\mathbb{P} V ) - \mathrm{Quot}^{0, d} ( V^* )$ generalising the natural map $\mathrm{Sym}^d X \to \mathrm{Quot}^{0, d} ({\mathcal O}_X)$. We then give a generalisation of the geometric Riemann--Roch theorem to vector bundles of higher rank over $X$. We use this to give a geometric description of the tangent cone to the Brill--Noether locus $B^r_{r, d}$ at a suitable bundle $E$ with $h^0 (E) = r+n$. This gives a generalisation of the Riemann--Kempf singularity theorem. As a corollary, we …
We study the base locus of the higher fundamental forms of a projective toric variety $X$ at a general point. More precisely we consider the closure $X$ of the image of a map $({\mathbb C}^*)^k\to {\mathbb P}^n$, sending $t$ to the vector of Laurent monomials with exponents $p_0,\dots,p_n\in {\mathbb Z}^k$. We prove that the $m$-th fundamental form of such an $X$ at a general point has non empty base locus if and only if the points $p_i$ lie on a suitable degree-$m$ affine hypersurface. We then restrict to the case in which the points $p_i$ are all the lattice points of a lattice polytope and …
Let $M_{\mathbb{P}^2}(v)$ be a moduli space of semistable sheaves on $\mathbb{P}^2$, and let $B^k(v) \subseteq M_{\mathbb{P}^2}(v)$ be the \textit{Brill-Noether locus} of sheaves $E$ with $h^0(\mathbb{P}^2, E) \geq k$. In this paper we develop the foundational properties of Brill-Noether loci on $\mathbb{P}^2$. Set $r = r(E)$ to be the rank and $c_1, c_2$ the Chern classes. The Brill-Noether loci have natural determinantal scheme structures and expected dimensions $dim B^k(v) = dim M_{\mathbb{P}^2}(v) - k(k - χ(E))$. When $c_1 > 0$, we show that the Brill-Noether locus $B^r(v)$ is nonempty. Wh…
Let $f \colon X \to Y$ be the blow-up of a smooth projective variety $Y$ along its codimension two smooth closed subvariety. In this paper, we show that the moduli space of stable sheaves on $X$ and $Y$ are connected by a sequence of flip-like diagrams. The result is a higher dimensional generalization of the result of Nakajima and Yoshioka, which is the case of $\dim Y=2$. As an application of our general result, we study the birational geometry of the Hilbert scheme of two points.
We study cohomology support loci and higher direct images of (log) pluricanonical bundles of smooth projective varieties or log canonical pairs. We prove that the 0-th cohomology support loci of log pluricanonical bundles are finite unions of torsion translates of subtori. We also construct an example of morphism from a smooth projective variety to an abelian variety such that a higher direct image of a pluricanonical bundle to the abelian variety is not a GV-sheaf.
Continuing our previous study of modified expected dimensions for rank-2 Brill-Noether loci with prescribed special determinants, we introduce a general framework which applies a priori for arbitrary rank, and use it to prove modified expected dimension bounds in several new cases, applying both to rank 2 and to higher rank. The main tool is the introduction of generalized alternating Grassmannians, which are the loci inside Grassmannians corresponding to subspaces which are simultaneously isotropic for a family of multilinear alternating forms on the ambient vector space. In the case of rank …
In this paper, we consider higher rank Brill-Noether theory for smooth curves of genus 5, obtaining new upper bounds for non-emptiness of Brill-Noether loci and many new examples.
I study a sequence of singularities in dimension 4 and above, each given by a cone of rank 1 tensors of a certain signature, which have crepant resolutions whose exceptional loci are isomorphic to cartesian powers of the projective line. In each dimension n, these resolutions naturally correspond to vertices of an (n-2)-simplex, and flops between them correspond to edges of the simplex. I show that each face of the simplex may then be associated to a certain relation between flop functors.
The higher direct image complex of a coherent sheaf (or finite complex of coherent sheaves) under a projective morphism is a fundamental construction that can be defined via a Cech complex or an injective resolution, both inherently infinite constructions. Using exterior algebras and relative versions of theorems of Beilinson and Bernstein-Gel'fand-Gel'fand, we give an alternate description in finite terms. Using this description we can characterize the generic complex, over the variety of finite free complexes of a given shape, as the direct image of an easily-described vector bundle. We can …
Given a smooth projective complex curve $X$ with an involution $σ$, we study the Hitchin systems for the locus of anti-invariant (resp. invariant) stable vector bundles over $X$ under $σ$. Using these integrable systems and the theory of the nilpotent cone, we study the irreducibility of these loci. The anti-invariant locus can be thought of as a generalisation of Prym varieties to higher rank.
We extend a result by Fulton-Harris-Lazarsfeld in Brill-Noehter theory of line bundles and, as well, a result by Aprod-Sernesi in theory of Secant Loci, to the Brill-Noehter locus of stable bundles inside the moduli space of higher rank stable vector bundles on a smooth projective algebraic curve. We give some consequences of this extended result.
We consider the question: ``How bad can the deformation space of an object be?'' The answer seems to be: ``Unless there is some a priori reason otherwise, the deformation space may be as bad as possible.'' We show this for a number of important moduli spaces. More precisely, every singularity of finite type over Z (up to smooth parameters) appears on: the Hilbert scheme of curves in projective space; and the moduli spaces of smooth projective general-type surfaces (or higher-dimensional varieties), plane curves with nodes and cusps, stable sheaves, isolated threefold singularities, and more. T…
We study the K-theory of actions of diagonalizable group schemes on noetherian regular separated algebraic spaces: our main result shows how to reconstruct the K-theory ring of such an action from the K-theory rings of the loci where the stabilizers have constant dimension. We apply this to the calculation of the equivariant K-theory of toric varieties, and give conditions under which the Merkurjev spectral sequence degenerates, so that the equivariant K-theory ring determines the ordinary K-theory ring. We also prove a very refined localization theorem for actions of this type.