Chordal varieties of Veronese varieties and catalecticant matrices (Q1296198)

The author studies higher Veronese varieties \(v_d(\mathbb{P}^{n-1})\) and \(r\)-secant varieties \(\text{Sec}_r (v_d(\mathbb{P}^{n-1}))\). Assuming the ground field is algebraically closed of characteristic zero, one proves that the Veronese variety is projectively normal, arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay, its affine cone has rational singularities and its ideal is generated by \(2\times 2\) minors of the catalecticant matrix \(\text{Cat}_F (1,d-1,n)\). The generation of the ideal of the Veronese variety was also proved by \textit{M. Pucci} [J. Algebra 202, No. 1, 72-95 (1998; see the preceding review Zbl 0936.14033)]. Further, one proves in this paper that the homogeneous ideal of \(\text{Sec}_2 (v_d(\mathbb{P}^{n-1}))\). is generated by the \(3\times 3\) minors of the catalecticant matrices \(\text{Cat}_F (1,d-1,n)\) and \(\text{Cat}_F (2,d-2,n)\); it is projectively normal, arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay, and its affine cone has rational singularities. These results are generalized to the catalecticant varieties \(\text{Gor}_\leq (T)\) with \(t_1=2\).