Maximal line subbundles of stable bundles of rank 2 over an algebraic curve

Let E be a vector bundle of rank 2 over an algebraic curve X of genus g ≥ 2. In this paper, we prove that E is determined by its maximal line subbundles if it is general. By restudying the results of Lange and Narasimhan which relates the maximal line subbundles with the secant varieties of X, we observe that the proof can be reduced to proving some cohomological conditions satisfied by the maximal line subbundles. By noting the similarity between these conditions and the notion of very stable bundles, we get the result for the case when E has Segre invariant s(E) = g. Also by using the elementary transformation, we have the result for the case s(E) = g−1. I. Choe and J. Choy were supported by KOSEF (R01-2003-000-11634-0) and S. Park was supported by Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by Korea Government(MOEHRD, Basic Research Promotion Fund) (KRF-2005-070-C00005)