Flatness of tangent cones of a family of hypersurfaces (Q916740): Difference between revisions

Let X be a scheme, embedded diagonally in \(X\times X\). Let \({\mathcal I}\) be the sheaf of ideals defining X. Then the author defines the \textit{tangent star cone} TS(X) to be Spec(\(\oplus_{j\geq 0}{\mathcal I}^ j/{\mathcal I}^{j+1})\). The paper studies the behaviour of TS(X) when X moves in a flat family \({\mathcal X}\) of hypersurfaces in a nonsingular scheme (over a parameter scheme). Loosely speaking, it is proved that TS(\({\mathcal X})\) is flat if and only if the multiplicity of the components of \({\mathcal X}\) remain constant on all fibres over the parameter scheme. Several explicit examples are described.