The variety of polar simplices (Q374000)

Consider a smooth hyperquadric \(Q\) in the projective space \(\mathbb{P}^{n-1}\) defined by the equation \(q=0\) (over the complex numbers or an algebraically closed field of characteristic different from 2). A set of \(n\) linear forms \(l_i\) is a \textit{polar simplex of \(Q\)} if the equation \(q\) is the sum of the squares \(l_i^2\). This set of \(l_i\)'s can be seen as a point in the Hilbert scheme of \(n\)-points in \(\mathbb{P}^{n-1}\) (the dual projective space of the one containing the quadric) and \(\mathrm{VPS}(Q,n)\) stands for the closure of the set of polar simplices to \(Q\) in this Hilbert scheme. It is known that \(\mathrm{VPS}(Q,2)\) is a projective line and that \(\mathrm{VPS}(Q,3)\) is a rational Fano 3-fold of index 2 and degree 5. In the paper under review (see Theorem 1.1) it is shown that for \(n \leq 5\), \(\mathrm{VPS}(Q,n)\) is a smooth rational Fano variety of index 2 and Picard number 1, too. Moreover, the dimension of these varieties is computed to be \(n \choose 2\) and rationality and singularity of the cases \(n \geq 6\) is proved. Furthermore, in Theorem 1.2, a natural embedding of \(\mathrm{VPS}(Q,n)\) in a Grassmannian is provided to get the generator of its Picard group for \(n=4\) and \(5\) (and its degree). Now consider the Veronese variety \(V_2\) of squares inside the projective space of quadratic forms. An \textit{apolar subscheme of length} \(n\) \textit{to} \(Q\) is a subscheme of length \(n\) in \(V_2\) spanning a linear space containing the point corresponding to \(q\). Theorem 1.3 provides a precise description of the reduced structure of \(\mathrm{VAPS}(Q,n)\) (the set of all these apolar subschemes in the corresponding Hilbert scheme) as a linear section of a Grassmannian in its Plücker embedding.