Extensions of projective varieties and deformations. II (Q1191899)

[For part I see the preceding review.] Given a smooth projective variety \(V\subset\mathbb{P}^ n\), a projective variety \(W\subset\mathbb{P}^{n+k}\) is called a \(k\)-step extension if \(V=W\cap\mathbb{P}^ n\), \(W\) is smooth along \(V\) and transversal to \(\mathbb{P}^ n\), where \(\mathbb{P}^ n\subset\mathbb{P}^{n+k}\) is a linear subspace. If \(W\) is not a cone, such an extension is called nontrivial. With the normal bundle \(N_{\mathbb{P}(E)| V}\) define \(\alpha(V)=h^ 0(V,N_{\mathbb{P}(E)| V}(-1))-(n+1)\). A main theorem of the present article is that if \(\alpha(V)<n\), \(V\neq\mathbb{P}^ n\), and \(V\) is not a quadric and is not contained in a hyperpane in \(\mathbb{P}^ n\), then \(V\) cannot be nontrivially extended more than \(\alpha(V)\) steps.