We continue the study, begun by the second author in math.AG/0701889, of secant defective manifolds having "simple entry loci". We prove that such manifolds are rational and describe them in terms of tangential projections. Using also our results in math.AG/0701885, their classification is reduced to the case of Fano manifolds of high index, whose Picard group is generated by the hyperplane section class. Conjecturally, the former should be linear sections of rational homogeneous manifolds. We also provide evidence that the classification of linearly normal dual defective manifolds with Picard group generated by the hyperplane section should follow along the same lines.
We introduce and study properties of the Terracini locus of projective varieties X, which is the locus of finite subsets S of X such that 2S fails to impose independent conditions to a linear system L. Terracini loci are relevant in the study of interpolation problems over double points in special position, but they also enter naturally in the study of special loci contained in secant varieties to projective varieties. We find some criteria which exclude that a set S belongs to the Terracini locus. Furthermore, in the case where X is a Veronese variety, we bound the dimension of the Terracini …
Although regular semisimple Hessenberg varieties are smooth and irreducible, semisimple Hessenberg varieties are not necessarily smooth in general. In this paper we determine the irreducible components of semisimple Hessenberg varieties corresponding to the standard Hessenberg space. We prove that these irreducible components are smooth and give an explicit description of their intersections, which constitute the singular locus. We conclude with an example of a semisimple Hessenberg variety corresponding to another Hessenberg space which is singular and irreducible, showing that results of thi…
Let $\mathcal{A}_g$ denote the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties of dimension $g \ge 3.$ In this paper we prove the connectedness of the singular sublocus of $\mathcal{A}_g$ consisting of those abelian varieties which possess an involution different from $-id$.
For a given complex projective variety, the existence of entire curves is strongly constrained by the positivity properties of the cotangent bundle. The Green-Griffiths-Lang conjecture stipulates that entire curves drawn on a variety of general type should all be contained in a proper algebraic subvariety. We present here new results on the existence of differential equations that strongly restrain the locus of entire curves in the general context of foliated or directed varieties, under appropriate positivity conditions.
Quadratic entry locus manifold of type $δ$ $X\subset\mathbb P^N$ of dimension $n\geq 1$ are smooth projective varieties such that the locus described on $X$ by the points spanning secant lines passing through a general point of the secant variety $SX\subseteq\mathbb P^N$ is a smooth quadric hypersurface of dimension $δ=2n+1-\dim(SX)$ equal to the secant defect of $X$. These manifolds appear widely and naturally among projective varieties having special geometric properties and/or extremal tangential behaviour. We prove that, letting $δ=2r_X +1\geq 3$ or $δ=2r_X+2$, then $2^{r_X}$ divides $n-δ$…
We approach non-divisorial base loci of big and nef line bundles on irreducible symplectic varieties. While for K3 surfaces, only divisorial base loci can occur, nothing was known about the behaviour of non-divisorial base loci for more general irreducible symplectic varieties. We determine the base loci of all big and nef line bundles on the Hilbert scheme of two points on very general K3 surfaces of genus two and on their birational models. Remarkably, we find an ample line bundle with a non-trivial base locus in codimension two. We deduce that, generically in the moduli spaces of polarized …
Let X be a Fano variety of index k such that the non-klt locus Nklt(X) is not empty. We prove that Nklt(X) has dimension at least k-1 and equality holds if and only if Nklt(X) is a linear projective space P^{k-1}. In this case X has lc singularities and is a generalised cone with Nklt(X) as vertex. If X has lc singularities and Nklt(X) has dimension k we describe the non-klt locus and the global geometry of X. Moreover, we construct examples to show that all the classification results are effective.
In this article, we describe explicitely the Gorenstein locus of all minuscule Schubert varieties. This proves a special case of a conjecture of A. Woo and A. Yong (see math.AG/0603273) on the Gorenstein locus of Schubert varieties.
We introduce the notion of potentially klt pairs for normal projective varieties with pseudoeffective anticanonical divisor. The potentially non-klt locus is a subset of $X$ which is birationally transformed precisely into the non-klt locus on a $-K_X$-minimal model of $X$. We prove basic properties of potentially non-klt locus in comparison with those of classical non-klt locus. As applications, we give a new characterization of varieties of Fano type, and we also improve results on the rational connectedness of uniruled varieties with pseudoeffective anticanonical divisor.
Motivated by a kind of Penrose correspondence, we investigate the space of hyperplane sections of Segre quartic surfaces which have an ordinary cusp. We show that the space of such hyperplane sections is empty for two kinds of Segre surfaces, and it is a connected surface for all other kinds of Segre surfaces. We also show that when it is non-empty, the closure of the space is either birational to the surface itself or birational to a double covering of the surface, whose branch divisor consists of some specific lines on the surface.
An algebraic subvariety Z of A_g is totally geodesic if it is the image via the natural projection map of some totally geodesic submanifold X of the Siegel space. We say that X is the symmetric space uniformizing Z. In this paper we determine which symmetric space uniformizes each of the low genus counterexamples to the Coleman-Oort conjecture obtained studying Galois covers of curves. It is known that the counterexamples obtained via Galois covers of elliptic curves admit two fibrations in totally geodesic subvarieties. The second result of the paper studies the relationship between these fib…
For the toric variety X associated to the Bruhat poset of Schubert varieties in a minuscule G/P, we describe the singular locus in terms of the faces of the associated polyhedral cone. We further show that the singular locus is pure of codimension 3 in X.
We prove that the non-nef locus and the restricted base locus of a pseudoeffective divisor coincide on KLT pairs. We also extend to KLT pairs F. Russo's characterization of nef and abundant divisors by means of asymptotic multiplier ideals.
In this paper, we use a group-theoretic approach to give a concrete description of the geometric structure of the supersingular locus of unitary Shimura varieties with exotic good reduction. This approach also is a more uniform way to prove results of this form obtained previously by, for example, Vollaard-Wedhorn and Rapoport-Terstiege-Wilson.
Restriction varieties in the orthogonal Grassmannian are subvarieties of $OG(k, n)$ defined by rank conditions given by a flag that is not necessarily isotropic with respect to the relevant symmetric bilinear form. In particular, Schubert varieties of Type B and D are examples of restriction varieties. In this paper, we introduce a resolution of singularities for restriction varieties in $OG(k, n)$, and give a description of their singular locus by studying components of the exceptional locus of the resolution.
For infinitely many Hurwitz spaces parametrizing cyclic covers of the projective line, we provide a method to determine the integral PEL datum of the Shimura variety that contains the image of the Hurwitz space under the Torelli morphism.
The paper investigates the locus of non-simple principally polarised abelian $g$-folds. We show that the irreducible components of this locus are $\Is^g_{D}$, defined as the locus of principally polarised $g$-folds having an abelian subvariety with induced polarisation of type $D=(d_1,\ldots,d_k)$, where $k\leq\frac{g}{2}$. The main theorem produces Humbert-like equations for irreducible components of $\Is^g_{D}$ for any $g$ and $D$. Moreover, there are theorems which characterise the Jacobians of curves that are étale double covers or double covers branched in two or four points.
Given the Prym variety of an étale double cover one can define analogues of the classical Brill-Noether loci on Jacobians of curves. Recent work by Lahoz and Naranjo shows that the Brill-Noether locus $V^2$ completely determines the covering. In this paper we describe the singular locus and the irreducible components of $V^2$.
We show that, with coefficients in a field or a complete local ring k, the Braden-MacPherson algorithm computes the stalks of parity sheaves with coefficients in k. As a consequence we deduce that the Braden-MacPherson algorithm may be used to calculate the characters of tilting modules for algebraic groups and show that the p-smooth locus of (Kac-Moody) Schubert varieties agrees with the rationally smooth locus, if the underlying Bruhat graph satisfies a GKM-condition.
Given a family of Galois coverings of the projective line we give a simple sufficient condition ensuring that the closure of the image of the family via the period mapping is a special (or Shimura) subvariety in A_g. By a computer program we get the list of all families in genus up to 8 satisfying our condition. There is no family in genus 8, all of them are in genus at most 7. These examples are related to a conjecture of Oort. Among them we get the cyclic examples constructed by various authors (Shimura, Mostow, De Jong-Noot, Rohde, Moonen and others) and the abelian non-cyclic examples foun…
We study entry loci of varieties and their irreducibility from the perspective of $X$-ranks with respect to a projective variety $X$. These loci are the closures of the points that appear in an $X$-rank decomposition of a general point in the ambient space. We look at entry loci of low degree normal surfaces in $\mathbb P^4$ using Segre points of curves; the smooth case was classically studied by Franchetta. We introduce a class of varieties whose generic rank coincides with the one of its general entry locus, and show that any smooth and irreducible projective variety admits an embedding with…
We study moduli spaces of abelian varieties in positive characteristic, more specifically the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties on the one hand, and the analogous space with Iwahori type level structure, on the other hand. We investigate the Ekedahl-Oort stratification on the former, the Kottwitz-Rapoport stratification on the latter, and their relationship. In this way, we obtain structural results about the supersingular locus in the case of Iwahori level structure, for instance a formula for its dimension in case $g$ is even.
This article has three goals. First, we generalize the result of Deuring and Serre on the characterization of supersingular locus of modular curves to all Shimura varieties given by totally indefinite quaternion algebras over totally real number fields. Second, we generalize the result of Ribet on arithmetic level raising to such Shimura varieties in the inert case. Third, as an application to number theory, we use the previous results to study the Selmer group of certain triple product motive of an elliptic curve, in the context of the Bloch--Kato conjecture.
We extend to normal projective varieties defined over an arbitrary algebraically closed field a result of Ein, Lazarsfeld, Mustaţă, Nakamaye and Popa characterizing the augmented base locus (aka non-ample locus) of a line bundle on a smooth projective complex variety as the union of subvarieties on which the restricted volume vanishes. We also give a proof of the folklore fact that the complement of the augmented base locus is the largest open subset on which the Kodaira map defined by large and divisible multiples of the line bundle is an isomorphism.
Given a Cayley-Hamilton smooth order A in a central simple algebra $Σ$, we determine the flat locus of the Brauer-Severi fibration of the smooth order. Moreover, we give a classification of all (reduced) central singularities where the flat locus differs from the Azumaya locus and show that the fibers over the flat, non-Azumaya points near these central singularities can be described as fibered products of graphs of projection maps, thus generalizing an old result of Artin on the fibers of the Brauer-Severi fibration over a ramified point. Finally, we show these fibers are also toric quiver va…
In the paper we consider the Jacobian locus $\overline{J_g}$ and the Prym locus $\overline{P_{g+1}}$, in the moduli space $A_g$ of principally polarized abelian varieties of dimension $g$, for $g\geq 7$, and we study the extrinsic geometry of $\overline{J_g}\subset \overline{P_{g+1}}$, under the inclusion provided by the theory of generalized Prym varieties as introduced by Beauville. More precisely, we study certain geodesic curves with respect to the Siegel metric of $A_g$, starting at a Jacobian variety $[JC]\in A_g$ of a curve $[C]\in M_g$ and with direction $ζ\in T_{[JC]}J_g$. We prove th…
We study the structure of string theory flux compactification for a general family of elliptic CY 3-folds. We investigate the locus of the attractor points of the flux compactification in type IIB string theory on the boundary components of period domains. Specifically we give equations describing this locus through the asymptotic of nilpotent orbits on period domains. our approach is a mixture of techniques of asymptotic Hodge theory and the numerical period vectors used in physics.
We study families of Galois covers of curves of positive genus. It is known that under a numerical condition these families yield Shimura subvarieties generically contained in the Jacobian locus. We prove that there are only 6 families satisfying this condition, all of them in genus 2,3 or 4. We also show that these families admit two fibrations in totally geodesic subvarieties, generalizing a result of Grushevsky and Möller. Countably many of these fibres are Shimura. Thus the Jacobian locus contains infinitely many Shimura subvarieties of positive dimension of any $g \leq 4$.
We study the Torelli locus T_g in the moduli space A_g of abelian varieties. We consider special subvarieties (Shimura subvarieties) contained in the Torelli locus. We review the construction of some non-trivial examples, and we discuss some conjectures, techniques and recent progress.
Let $X$ be any variety in characteristic zero. Let $V \subset X$ be an open subset that has toroidal singularities. We show the existence of a canonical desingularization of $X$ except for V. It is a morphism $f: Y \to X$ , which does not modify the subset $ V $ and transforms $X$ into a toroidal embedding $Y$, with singularities extending those on $V$. Moreover, the exceptional divisor has simple normal crossings on $Y$. The theorem naturally generalizes the Hironaka canonical desingularization. It does not modify the nonsingular locus $V$ and transforms $X$ into a nonsingular variety $Y$. Th…
We prove the congruence relation for the mod-p reduction of Shimura varieties associated to a unitary similitude group GU(n-1,1), when p is inert and n odd. When n is even, this result was obtained by T. Wedhorn and O. Bültel using the density of the ordinary locus in the p-isogeny space. This condition fails in our case. A key element is the understanding of the supersingular locus, for which we refer to the two articles by I. Vollaard and T. Wedhorn. The proof makes extensive use of elementary algebraic geometry, but also some deeper results.
In this paper, we consider the GIT quotients of Schubert varieties for the action of a maximal torus. We describe the minuscule Schubert varieties for which the semistable locus is contained in the smooth locus. As a consequence, we study the smoothness of torus quotients of Schubert varieties in the Grassmannian. We also prove that the torus quotient of any Schubert variety in the homogeneous space $SL(n, \mathbb C)/P$ is projectively normal with respect to the line bundle $\mathcal L_{α_0}$ and the quotient space is a projective space, where the line bundle $\mathcal L_{α_0}$ and the parabol…
In this short note we give a characterization of extremal principally polarized abelian varieties determining an isolated point in $Sing \Cal A_g$. The case $g=5$ is treated with detail.
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 make explicit the equations of any projective $PGL_2(\C)$-variety defined by quadrics. We study their zero-locus and their relationship with the geometry of the Veronese curve.
Let X = G/P be a cominuscule rational homogeneous variety. (Equivalently, X admits the structure of a compact Hermitian symmetric space.) I give a uniform description (that is, independent of type) of the irreducible components of the singular locus of a Schubert variety Y in X in terms of representation theoretic data. The result is based on a recent characterization of the Schubert varieties by an non-negative integer A and a marked Dynkin diagram. Corollaries include: (1) the variety is smooth if and only if A=0; (2) if G of Type ADE, then the singular locus occurs in codimension at least t…
We review the Newton stratification and Ekedahl-Oort stratification on the special fiber of a smooth integral model for a Shimura variety of Hodge type at a prime of good reduction. We show that the μ-ordinary locus coincides with the generic Ekedahl-Oort stratum, and that for any two geometric points in the μ-ordinary locus there is an isomorphism of the attached Dieudonne modules with additional structure. As a consequence, we proof that the μ-ordinary locus is open and dense, thus generalizing the results which were already known in the PEL-case. To prove our results we provide a method whi…
We prove the generic exclusion of certain Shimura varieties of unitary and orthogonal types from the Torelli locus. The proof relies on a slope inequality on surface fibration due to G. Xiao, and the main result implies that certain Shimura varieties only meet the Torelli locus in dimension zero.
We prove that the singular locus of the commuting variety of a noncommutative reductive Lie algebra is contained in the irregular locus and we compute the codimension of the latter. We prove that one of the irreducible components of the irregular locus has codimension 4. This yields the lower bound of the codimension of the singular locus, in particular, implies that it is at least 2. We also prove that the commuting variety is rational.
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…
