Double covers of quadratic degeneracy and Lagrangian intersection loci (Q2205577)

This article describes a general construction of double covers over quadratic degeneracy loci (Theorem \(3.1\)) and Lagrangian intersection loci (Theorem \(4.2\)) using reflexive sheaves. \begin{itemize} \item[(1)] Under some regularity assumptions on the family of quadratic forms, the authors obtain (in Proposition \(3.7\)) a criterion for the double cover over the corank-\(k\) degeneracy locus of the family to be nonsingular. The double covers obtained are shown (in Proposition \(3.10\)) to be the normalization of the double covers obtained by the Stein factorization of the projections of the Hilbert schemes of linear isotropic spaces for the quadric fibration corresponding to the family of quadratic forms. Applications of the results give constructions of natural double covers of symmetroid hypersurfaces of odd degree (Theorem \(3.11\)). \item[(2)] The double covers over Lagrangian intersection loci are shown to remain unchanged under (appropriately defined) isotropic reduction (Proposition \(4.5\)). Moreover étale locally these double covers coincide with the double covers over quadratic degeneracy loci for appropriately defined families of quadratic forms (Proposition \(4.7\)) and hence the nonsingularity criterion of double covers of quadratic degeneracy loci are applicable. \item[(3)] Constructions of double covers of Lagrangian intersection loci are applied to obtain double covers of EPW varieties, which generalize the constructions of double EPW sextics [\textit{K. G. O'Grady}, Mich. Math. J. 62, No. 1, 143--184 (2013; Zbl 1276.14008)] and EPW cubes [\textit{A. Iliev} et al., J. Reine Angew. Math. 748, 241--268 (2019; Zbl 1423.14220)]. \end{itemize}