Congruences of lines in \({{\mathbb P}^5}\), quadratic normality, and completely exceptional Monge-Ampère equations (Q2481657)

Let \(X\) be the degeneracy locus of a general morphism \(\phi: \mathcal{O}^{4}_{\mathbb P^5} \to \Omega_{\mathbb P^5}(2)\). Such degeneracy locus is a three dimensional scroll over a cubic surface in \(\mathbb P^3\) and it is called \textit{Palatini scroll}. It turns out that such threefold \(X\) is not quadratically normal, that is, \(h^{1}({\mathcal I}_{X}(2))\neq 0\). C. Peskine conjectured that such an \(X\) is the only nonsingular threefold in \(\mathbb P^5\) with this property. In the paper under review the authors, using congruences of lines, construct two families of threefolds in \(\mathbb P^5\) which are not quadratically normal. Both examples are singular, nonsingular in codimension \(1\), of degree \(6\) and sectional genus \(1\). A threefold of the first family was constructed as focal loci of some first order congruences of lines in \(\mathbb P^5\). The second family comes from the congruences which are associated to the completely exceptional Monge-Ampère system of differential equations, which turn out to be a smooth congruence of multidegree \((1,3,3)\) which is a Fano manifolds of index two and genus \(9\). As a byproduct of their results the authors get another interpretation of the Fano fourfold of index two and genus \(9\) which was already considered by \textit{S. Mukai} [in: Algebraic geometry and commutative algebra, in Honor of Masayoshi Nagata, Vol. I, 357--377 (1988; Zbl 0701.14044)]. They show that on such Fano fourfold there is a rank \(2\) vector bundle which embeds the variety in \({\mathbb G}(1,5)\). The connection between congruences of lines of order one and the lifting problem is also discussed.