The effect of points fattening on postulation

We classify sets Z of points in the projective plane, for which the difference between the minimal degrees of curves containing 2Z and Z respectively is small.     

On the number of cusps on cuspidal curves on Hirzebruch surfaces

In this article we give an upper bound for the number of cusps on a cuspidal curve on a Hirzebruch surface. We adapt the results that have been found for a similar question asked for cuspidal curves on the projective plane, and restate the results in this new setting.     

The role of the cotangent bundle in resolving ideals of fat points in the plane

We study the connection between the generation of a fat point scheme supported at general points in and the behaviour of the cotangent bundle with respect to some rational curves particularly relevant for the scheme. We put forward two conjectures, giving examples and partial results in support of them.     

Applications of toric systems on surfaces

In this note we apply the techniques of the toric systems introduced by Hille–Perling to several problems on smooth projective surfaces: We showed that the existence of full exceptional collection of line bundles implies the rationality for small Picard rank surfaces; we proved equivalences of several notions of cyclic strong exceptional collection of line bundles; we also proposed a partial solution to a conjecture on exceptional sheaves on weak del Pezzo surfaces.     

Separators of points on algebraic surfaces

For a finite set of points X⊆Pⁿ and for a given point P∈X, the notion of a separator of P in X (a hypersurface containing all the points in X except P) and of the degree of P in X, (the minimum degree of these separators) has been largely studied. In this paper we extend these notions to a set of points X on a projectively normal surface S⊆Pⁿ, considering as separators arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay curves and generalizing the case S=P² in a natural way. We denote the minimum degree of such curves as and we study its relation to . We prove that if S is a variety of minimal degree these two terms are explicitly related by a formula, whereas only an inequality holds for other kinds of surfaces.     

Varieties with minimal secant degree and linear systems of maximal dimension on surfaces

In this paper we prove, using a refinement of Terracini's Lemma, a sharp lower bound for the degree of (higher) secant varieties to a given projective variety, which extends the well known lower bound for the degree of a variety in terms of its dimension and codimension in projective space. Moreover we study varieties for which the bound is attained proving some general properties related to tangential projections, e.g. these varieties are rational. In particular we completely classify surfaces (and curves) for which the bound is attained. It turns out that these surfaces enjoy some maximality properties for their embedding dimension in terms of their degree or sectional genus. This is related to classical beautiful results of Castelnuovo and Enriques that we revise here in terms of adjunction theory.     

Curves having one place at infinity and linear systems on rational surfaces

Denoting by L_d(m₀,m₁,…,m_r) the linear system of plane curves of degree d passing through r+1 generic points p₀,p₁,…,p_r of the projective plane with multiplicity m_i (or larger) at each p_i, we prove the Harbourne-Hirschowitz Conjecture for linear systems L_d(m₀,m₁,…,m_r) determined by a wide family of systems of multiplicities and arbitrary degree d. Moreover, we provide an algorithm for computing a bound for the regularity of an arbitrary system , and we give its exact value when is in the above family. To do that, we prove an H¹-vanishing theorem for line bundles on surfaces associated with some pencils “at infinity”.     

Seshadri constants on rational surfaces with anticanonical pencils

We study a Seshadri constant at a general point on a rational surface whose anticanonical linear system contains a pencil. First, we describe a Seshadri constant of an ample line bundle on such a rational surface explicitly by the numerical data of the ample line bundle. Second, we classify log del Pezzo surfaces which are special in terms of the Seshadri constants of the anticanonical divisors when the anticanonical degree is between 4 and 9.     

Numerically positive divisors on algebraic surfaces

Numerically positive line bundles on a complex projective smooth algebraic surfaceS are studied. In particular for any such line bundleL Pic(S) we prove the following facts: (i)g(L) 0 and (ii)L is ample ifg(L) 1,g standing for the arithmetic genus. Some applications are discussed. We also investigate numerically positive non-ample line bundlesL withg(L)=2.     

Simultaneous generation of jets on K3 surfaces

Let L be an ample line bundle on a K3 surface. We give a sharp bound on n for which nL is k-jet ample.Received: 27 December 2002     

Pluricanonical maps of stable log surfaces

Stable surfaces and their log analogues are the type of varieties naturally occurring as boundary points in moduli spaces. We extend classical results of Kodaira and Bombieri to this more general setting: if (X,Δ)$(X,\mathrm{\Delta })$ is a stable log surface with reduced boundary (possibly empty) and I   is its global index, then 4I(_KX+Δ)$4I(K_X+\mathrm{\Delta })$ is base-point-free and 8I(_KX+Δ)$8I(K_X+\mathrm{\Delta })$ is very ample.     

Triple-point defective ruled surfaces

In [L. Chiantini, T. Markwig, Triple-point defective regular surfaces. arXiv:0705.3912, 2007] we studied triple-point defective very ample linear systems on regular surfaces, and we showed that they can only exist if the surface is ruled. In the present paper we show that we can drop the regularity assumption, and we classify the triple-point defective very ample linear systems on ruled surfaces.     

Some general results on plane curves with total inflection points

In this paper we study plane curves of degree d with e total inflection points, for nonzero natural numbers d and e. Marc Coppens: the author is affiliated with K. U. Leuven as Research Fellow Received: 25 October 2006     

Nef cone volumes and discriminants of abelian surfaces

The nef cone volume appeared first in work of Peyre in a number-theoretic context on Fano varieties, and was then studied by Derenthal and co-authors in a series of papers on del Pezzo surfaces. The idea was subsequently extended to also measure the Zariski chambers of del Pezzo surfaces. We start in this paper to explore the possibility to use this attractive concept to effectively measure the size of the nef cone on algebraic surfaces in general. This provides an interesting way of measuring in how big a space an ample line bundle can be moved without destroying its positivity. We give here complete results for simple abelian surfaces that admit a principal polarization and for products of elliptic curves.     

The gonality and the Clifford index of curves on an elliptic ruled surface

In this paper it is shown that the gonality of curves on an elliptic ruled surface is twice the degree of the restriction of the bundle map and the Clifford index of such curves is computed by pencils of minimal degree, under certain numerical conditions. It is also proved that any pencil computing the gonality and the Clifford index of curves is composed with the restriction of the bundle map under some stronger conditions. On the other hand, we found some counterexample to the constancy of gonality and Clifford index in a linear system.Received: 2 December 2003