Brill-Noether theory and non-special scrolls (Q1018063)

The authors study the Brill-Noether theory of sub-line bundles of a general, stable rank-two vector bundle on a curve \(C\) with general moduli. This theory is related to the geometry of unisecant curves on smooth, non-special scrolls with hyperplane sections isomorphic to \(C\). Most of the results are based on degeneration techniques (cf. Construction 3.2). More concretely, for a curve \(C\) of genus \(g \geq 1\), let \(U_C(d)\) be the moduli space of semistable rank 2 vector bundles on \(C\) of degree \(d\); and for \(F \in U_C(d)\) consider the set \(M_n(F) = \{\) all invertible subsheaves \(N\) of \(F\) of degree \(n\) \(\}\). The main problem discussed in the paper is the study of the loci \(M_n(F)\) and their Abel-Jacobi images \(W_n(F) \subset \mathrm{Pic}^n(C)\) for a general curve \(C\) of genus \(g\). This problem is translated in terms of the geometry of scrolls \(S\) over \(C\); and the condition of generality yields in particular that \(S\) should be non-special. Let \(S\) be a smooth non-special projectively normal scroll \(S\) of degree \(d\) and sectional genus \(g\); if \(d \geq 2g+3 + \min(1,g-1)\) then such scrolls \(S\) form a unique component \(H_{d,g}\) of the Hilbert scheme of surfaces in \({\mathbb{P}}^R\), \(R = d-2g+1\). For the general \(S = {\mathbb{P}}(F)\) of \(H_{d,g}\) with \(F \in U_C(d)\) very ample, let \(Div^{1,m}_S\) be the set of unisecant curves of \(S\) of degree \(m = d-n\). Under these generality conditions, in Proposition 4.11 it is proved that the moduli set \(M_n(F)\) is isomorphic to \(Div^{1,m}_S\). Next, in Lemma 4.21 is shown that the fibers of the Abel-Jacobi map \({\pi}_n: M_n(F) \rightarrow W_n(F) \subset \mathrm{Pic}^n(C)\) are connected and can be identified with linear systems of unisecant curves of degree \(m\) on \(S\); in this setting the analogs of the classical Brill-Noether loci are the subschemes \(W^r_n(F) \subset W_n(F)\) of points where the fibre of \(\pi_n\) has dimension \(\geq r\). These loci are studied in general in Section 4 (see e.g. Proposition 4.36). In Section 5 is studied the special case \(W^1_n(F)\). Theorem 5.1 shows that for the general curve \(C\) of genus \(g \geq 1\) the loci \(W^1_n(F)\) are of the expected dimension.