Submanifolds with splitting tangent sequence (Q2571062)

A closed submanifold \(X\) of a projective manifold \(M\) has a splitting tangent sequence if the inclusion \(T_X \subset T_M| _X\) exhibits \(T_X\) as a direct factor of \(T_M| _X\), so \(T_M| _X \simeq T_X \oplus N_{X/M}\). A theorem of \textit{A. Van de Ven} [in: Centre Belge Rech. Math., Colloque Géom. Différ. Globale 151--152 (1959; Zbl 0092.14004)] states that for \(M\) the projective space, the submanifolds with this property are exactly linear subspaces. It is a natural question to ask for similar statements for \(M\) a homogeneous manifold, since a submanifold with splitting tangent sequence should inherit some of the strong positivity properties of the tangent bundle \(T_M\). A homogeneous manifold being isomorphic to a product of an abelian variety and a rational homogeneous variety, one should first study these two cases separately. The author shows that the tangent sequence of a submanifold of an abelian variety splits if and only if it is abelian. The case of rational homogeneous varieties is much harder, since it isn't even clear if the submanifold \(X\) is rational homogeneous. This turns out to be true for \(M\) a Grassmannian or a quadric \(Q_n\), and using results from classification theory the author obtains a complete description of submanifolds of \(Q_n\) with splitting tangent sequence. The author also generalizes Van de Ven's theorem in a different direction, namely for \(M\) being the blow-up of \(\mathbb P^n\) in a point.