Partial derivatives of a generic subspace of a vector space of forms: Quotients of level algebras of arbitrary type

Given a vector space of homogeneous polynomials of the same degree over an infinite field, consider a generic subspace of . The main result of this paper is a lower-bound (in general sharp) for the dimensions of the spaces spanned in each degree by the partial derivatives of the forms generating , in terms of the dimensions of the spaces spanned by the partial derivatives of the forms generating the original space .

Rephrasing our result in the language of commutative algebra (where this result finds its most important applications), we have: let be a type artinian level algebra with -vector , and let, for , be the -vector of the generic type level quotient of having the same socle degree . Then we supply a lower-bound (in general sharp) for the -vector . Explicitly, we will show that, for any ,

This result generalizes a recent theorem of Iarrobino (which treats the case ).

Finally, we begin to obtain, as a consequence, some structure theorems for level -vectors of type bigger than 2, which is, at this time, a very little explored topic.