The \(G\)-biliaison class of symmetric determinantal schemes (Q875932): Difference between revisions

Classically, liaison theory has studied the equivalence relation on subschemes of projective space generated by identifying two subschemes if their union is a complete intersection. Such schemes are said to be CI-linked. In order to extend this to allow common components, there is an algebraic version involving ideal quotients of the corresponding homogeneous ideals. In the last decade, there has been a great deal of activity around the idea of replacing ``complete intersection'' by ``arithmetically Gorenstein scheme''. The resulting equivalence relation is called \(G\)-liaison. If we insist on even numbers of links, we obtain even \(G\)-liaison, or the closely related \(G\)-biliaison (which puts it in the context of divisors on arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay subschemes). Background material on liaison theory can be found in the reviewer's book [``Introduction to liaison theory and deficiency modules''. Boston, MA: Birkhäuser (1998; Zbl 0921.14033)]. A long-standing open question is whether every arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay subscheme of projective space is in the even \(G\)-liaison class of a complete intersection (so-called glicci schemes). The analogous statement for even CI-liaison has long been known to be false, although it is true in codimension two. Because this question is not known even in codimension three, any large class for which it is true gives an interesting result. (Of course, even one subscheme for which it is false would be immensely interesting!) The first large class for which it was shown to be true is that of standard determinantal schemes [due to \textit{J. O. Kleppe}, the reviewer, \textit{R. Miró-Roig, U. Nagel} and \textit{C. Peterson}, Gorenstein liaison, complete intersection liaison invariants and unobstructedness, Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 732 (2001; Zbl 1006.14018)]. In this paper, the author considers the slightly stronger question of \(G\)-biliaison. She proves it for another large class, namely that of symmetric determinantal schemes. These are defined by the minors of a homogeneous symmetric matrix with polynomial entries, under the assumption that the codimension is the largest possible given the size of the matrix and of the minors defining the ideal. The author explicitly describes the biliaisons used to arrive at a complete intersection (which in fact is shown to be a linear variety). All divisors involved in the \(G\)-biliaisons are symmetric determinantal, and the \(G\)-biliaisons are performed on almost-symmetric determinantal schemes, in analogy to the proof given by Kleppe et al. mentioned above.