Secant varieties of Segre-Veronese embeddings of \((\mathbb{P }^1)^r\) (Q2392792)

The authors compute the dimensions of all secant varieties of all Segre-Veronese embedding of \((\mathbb {P}^1)^r\), any \(r\). They show that the dimension is the conjectural one (i.e., the corresponding embedding of \((\mathbb {P}^1)^r\) is not defective), except in 4 cases previously known (the last one with \(r=4\) was found by \textit{M. V. Catalisano}, \textit{A. V. Geramita} and \textit{A. Gimigliano} [in: Projective varieties with unexpected properties. A volume in memory of Giuseppe Veronese. Proceedings of the international conference ``Varieties with unexpected properties'', Siena, Italy, June 8--13, 2004. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 81--107 (2005; Zbl 1102.14037)]. By Terracini's lemma it is sufficient to prove that (except in those 4 cases) any number of general double points impose independent conditions to \(H^0(L)\), where \(L\) is any ample line bundle on \((\mathbb {P}^1)^r\). This is done using in a very clever way a degeneration and inductive technique introduced in [\textit{C. Ciliberto} and \textit{R. Miranda}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 501, 191--220 (1998; Zbl 0943.14002)] and used in [\textit{E. Postinghel}, Ann. Math. Pura Appl. (4) 191, No. 1, 77--94 (2012; Zbl 1249.14002)] to get another proof of the famous Alexander-Hirschowitz theorem. The starting point of the induction is the non-defectivity for \(r\geq 5\) of the Segre embedding of \((\mathbb {P}^1)^r\) proved in [\textit{M. V. Catalisano}, \textit{A. V. Geramita} and \textit{A. Gimigliano}, J. Algebr. Geom. 20, No. 2, 295--327 (2011; Zbl 1217.14039)].