Fibrations by curves with more than one nonsmooth point

Bertini’s theorem on variable singular pointsmay fail in positive characteristic, as was discovered by Zariski in 1944. In fact, he found fibrations by nonsmooth curves. In this work we continue to classify this phenomenon in characteristic three by constructing the first example, rising in the literature, of fibrations with more than one nonsmooth point. Our approach has been motivated by the close relation between it and the theory of regular but nonsmooth curves, or equivalently, nonconservative function fields in one variable. In analogy to the Kodaira-Néron classification of special fibers of minimal fibrations by elliptic curves, we also construct the minimal proper regular model of some fibrations by nonsmooth projective plane quartic curves and determine the structure of the bad fibers.     

On the moduli of surfaces admitting genus two fibrations over elliptic curves

In this paper, we study the structure, deformations and the moduli spaces of complex projective surfaces admitting genus two fibrations over elliptic curves. We observe that a surface admitting a smooth fibration as above is elliptic, and we employ results on the moduli of polarized elliptic surfaces to construct moduli spaces of these smooth fibrations. In the case of nonsmooth fibrations, we relate the moduli spaces to the Hurwitz schemes of morphisms of degree n from elliptic curves to the modular curve X(d), d ≥ 3. Ultimately, we show that the moduli spaces in the nonsmooth case are fiber spaces over the affine line with fibers determined by the components of . Received: 30 August 2006     

Twelve points on the projective line, branched covers, and rational elliptic fibrations

The following divisors in the space of twelve points on are actually the same: the possible locus of the twelve nodal fibers in a rational elliptic fibration (i.e. a pencil of plane cubic curves); degree 12 binary forms that can be expressed as a cube plus a square; the locus of the twelve tangents to a smooth plane quartic from a general point of the plane; the branch locus of a degree 4 map from a hyperelliptic genus 3 curve to ; the branch locus of a degree 3 map from a genus 4 curve to induced by a theta-characteristic; and several more. The corresponding moduli spaces are smooth, but they are not all isomorphic; some are finite étale covers of others. We describe the web of interconnections among these spaces, and give monodromy, rationality, and Prym-related consequences. Enumerative consequences include: (i) the degree of this locus is 3762 (e.g. there are 3762 rational elliptic fibrations with nodes above 11 given general points of the base); (ii) if is a cover as in , then there are 135 different such covers branched at the same points; (iii) the general set of 12 tangent lines that arise in turn up in 120 essentially different ways. Some parts of this story are well known, and some other parts were known classically (to Zeuthen, Zariski, Coble, Mumford, and others). The unified picture is surprisingly intricate and connects many beautiful constructions, including Recillas' trigonal construction and Shioda's -Mordell-Weil lattice. Received November 3, 1999 / Published online February 5, 2001     

Projective varieties admitting an embedding with Gauss map of rank zero

We introduce an intrinsic property for a projective variety as follows: there exists an embedding into some projective space such that the Gauss map is of rank zero, which we call (GMRZ) for short. It turns out that (GMRZ) imposes strong restrictions on rational curves on projective varieties: In fact, using (GMRZ), we show that, contrary to the characteristic zero case, the existence of free rational curves does not imply that of minimal free rational curves in positive characteristic case. We also focus attention on Segre varieties, Grassmann varieties, and hypersurfaces of low degree. In particular, we give a characterisation of Fermat cubic hypersurfaces in terms of (GMRZ), and show that a general hypersurface of low degree does not satisfy (GMRZ).     

A rational sextic associated with a Desargues configuration

In this paper we consider a Desargues configuration in the projective plane, i.e. ten points and ten lines, on each line we have three of the points and through each point we have three of the lines. We construct a rational curve of order 6 which has a node at each of the ten points. We have never seen this kind of curve in the literature, but it is well known that for anyn there exists a rational curve of ordern which has [(n–1)(n–2)]/2 nodes and ifn=6 we find a sextic with ten nodes. The purpose of this paper is to obtain a sextic of this kind as a locus of points in connection with special projectivities of the plane associated with the Desargues configuration and to find a rational parametric representation of it. A large part of this paper is done with MACSYMA: it is an application of computer algebra in algebraic geometry. Special cases, where we find a quintic, a quartic or a cubic, are given in the last section.     

On a class of rational cuspidal plane curves

We obtain new examples and the complete list of the rational cuspidal plane curvesC with at least three cusps, one of which has multiplicitydegC-2. It occurs that these curves are projectively rigid. We also discuss the general problem of projective rigidity of rational cuspidal plane curves.     

On the moduli of surfaces admitting genus 2 fibrations

We investigate the structure of the components of the moduli space of surfaces of general type, which parametrize surfaces admitting nonsmooth genus 2 fibrations of nonalbanese type, over curves of genusg _b≥2.     

Non degenerate projective curves with very degenerate hyperplane section

In this paper, we study the Hilbert scheme of non degenerate locally Cohen- Macaulay projective curves with general hyperplane section spanning a linear space of dimension 2 and minimal Hilbert function. The main result is that those curves are almost always the general element of a generically smooth component H_n,d,g of the corresponding Hilbert scheme. Moreover, we show that the curves with maximal cohomology almost always correspond to smooth points of H_n,d,g.All the authors were partially supported by Acción Integrada Italia-España, HI2000-0091, and by the Italian counterpart of the project.     

A Semple-type approach to a problem of Goursat: The multi-flag case

We consider the problem of classifying the orbits within a tower of fibrations with fibers diffeomorphic to projective planes and we generalize the tower of fiber bundles due to J. Semple. This tower, which was rediscovered by Montgomery and Zhitomirskii in the context of subriemannian geometry, admits a natural action of the diffeomorphism group of affine 3-space, and these orbits correspond to classes of Goursat multi-flags. We demonstrate that it is possible to classify many of these orbits by elementary means by appealing to some basic tools in projective geometry, and the combinatorics of spatial curves.     

Bounds for the relative Euler-Poincaré characteristic of certain hyperelliptic fibrations

In this paper, we find the lower bound for the relative Euler-Poincaré characteristic of a relatively minimal hyperelliptic fibration with slope four. We prove the existence of hyperelliptic fibrations over an elliptic curve, which attain our bound.     

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 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     

Elliptic fibrations on cubic surfaces

We classify elliptic fibrations birational to a nonsingular, minimal cubic surface over a field of characteristic zero. Our proof is adapted to provide computational techniques for the analysis of such fibrations, and we describe an implementation of this analysis in computer algebra.     

On certain remarkable curves of genus five

The aim of this note is twofold. First to show the existence of genus five curves having exactly twenty four Weierstrass points, which constitute the set of fixed points of three distinct elliptic involutions on them. Second to characterize these curves, in fact we prove that all such curves are bielliptic double cover of Fermat's quartic.     

Algebraic curves and the Gauss map of algebraic minimal surfaces

In this paper, we first establish a second main theorem for algebraic curves into the n-dimensional projective space. We then use it to study the ramified values for the Gauss map of the complete (regular) minimal surfaces in Rm with finite total curvature, as well as the uniqueness problem.     

Laplace equations,Lefschetz properties and line arrangements

In this note we extend the main result in [6] on artinian ideals failing Lefschetz properties, varieties satisfying Laplace equations and existence of suitable singular hypersurfaces. Moreover we characterize the minimal generation of ideals generated by powers of linear forms by the configuration of their dual points in the projective plane and we use this result to improve some propositions on line arrangements and Strong Lefschetz Property at range 2 in [6]. The starting point was an example in [3]. Finally we show the equivalence among failing SLP, Laplace equations and some unexpected curves introduced in [3].