Discriminantal arrangement, \(3{\times}3\) minors of Plücker matrix and hypersurfaces in Grassmannian \(\mathrm{Gr}(3, n)\) (Q1681545)

In the present note, the authors focus on certain properties of generic hyperplane arrangements in \(\mathbb{C}^{3}\) and determinantal arrangements. Let \(H_{i}^{0}\) with \(i=1, \dots, n\) be a generic arrangement in \(\mathbb{C}^{k}\) with \(k < n\). The space of parallel translates \(\mathbb{S}(H_{1}^{0}, \dots, H_{n}^{0})\) is the space of \(n\)-tuples \(H_{1}, \dots, H_{n}\) such that either \(H_{i}\cap H_{i}^{0} = \emptyset\) or \(H_{i} = H_{i}^{0}\) for any \(i=1, \dots, n\). One can identify \(\mathbb{S}\) with the \(n\)-dimensional affine space \(\mathbb{C}^{n}\) in such a way that \((H_{1}^{0}, \dots, H_{n}^{0})\) corresponds to the origin. For a generic arrangement \(\mathcal{A}\) in \(\mathbb{C}^{k}\) formed by hyperplanes \(H_{i}\) the trace at infinity, denoted by \(\mathcal{A}_{\infty}\), is the arrangement formed by hyperplanes \(H_{\infty, i} = \overline{H}_{i}^{0} \cap H_{\infty}\), where \(\overline{H}_{i}^{0}\) denotes the projective compactification. The trace \(\mathcal{A}_{\infty}\) of an arrangement \(\mathcal{A}\) determines the space of parallel translates \(\mathbb{S}\). For a generic arrangement \(\mathcal{A}_{\infty}\), consider the closed subset of \(\mathbb{S}\) formed by those collections that fail to form a generic arrangement. This subset is a union of hyperplanes with each hyperplane \(D_{L}\) corresponding to a subset \(L = \{i_{1}, \dots, i_{k+1}\} \subset [n] = \{1, \dots, n\}\) and consisting of \(n\)-tuples of translates of hyperplanes \(H_{1}^{0}, \dots, H_{n}^{0}\) in which translates of \(H_{i_{1}}^{0}, \dots, H_{i_{k}}^{0}\) fail to form a generic arrangement. The arrangement \(\mathcal{B}(n,k,\mathcal{A}_{\infty})\) of hyperplanes \(D_{L}\) is called the discriminantal arrangement. Given \(s \geq 2\) and \(n \geq 3s\), consider the set \(\mathbb{T} = \{L_{1}, L_{2}, L_{3}\}\) with \(L_{i}\) subsets of \([n]\) such that \(|L_{i}|=2s\), \(|L_{i} \cap L_{j}| = s\) for \(i\neq j\), \(L_{1} \cap L_{2} \cap L_{3} = \emptyset\) with a choice \(L_{1} = \{i_{1},\dots, i_{2s}\}\), \(L_{2} = \{i_{s+1}, \dots, s_{2s}\}\), \(L_{3} = \{i_{1}, \dots,i_{s},i_{2s+1}, \dots, i_{3s}\}\). We call the set \(\mathbb{T} = \{L_{1}, L_{2},L_{3}\}\) a good \(3s\)-partition. Let now \(\alpha_{i} = (a_{i1}, \dots, a_{ik})\) be the normal vectors of hyperplanes \(H_{i}^{0}\) with \(i \in \{1, \dots,n\}\) in the generic arrangement \(\mathcal{A}\) in \(\mathbb{C}^{k}\). Then the normal vectors to \(D_{L}\) with \(L=\{s_{1} < \dots < s_{k+1}\} \subset [n]\) in \(\mathbb{S} \simeq \mathbb{C}^{n}\) are nonzero vectors of the form \[ \alpha_{L} = \sum_{i=1}^{k+1} (-1)^{i} \det(\alpha_{s_{1}}, \dots ,\hat{\alpha_{s_{i}}}, \dots, \alpha_{s_{k+1}})e_{s_{i}}, \] where \(e_{i}\)'s form the standard basis of \(\mathbb{C}^{n}\). Let \(\mathcal{P}_{k+1}([n]) = \{L \subset [n] : |L| = k+1\}\) be the set of cardinality \(k+1\), and we denote by \[ A(\mathcal{A}_{\infty}) = (\alpha_{L})_{L \in \mathcal{P}_{k+1}([n])} \] and by \(A_{\mathbb{T}}(\mathcal{A}_{\infty})\) the submatrix of \(A(\mathcal{A}_{\infty})\) with rows \(\alpha_{L}\), where \(L \in \mathbb{T}\), \(\mathbb{T} \subset \mathcal{P}_{k+1}([n])\) of cardinality \(m\). Finally, we can define Athanasiadis polynomial \[ p_{\mathbb{T}}(a_{ij}) = \sum_{J \subset [n], |J| = m} \det[A_{\mathbb{T},J}(\mathcal{A}_{\infty})]^{2} \] in the variable \(a_{ij}\) given by the sum of squares of determinants of the \(m \times m\) submatrices \(A_{\mathbb{T},J}\) of \(A_{\mathbb{T}}(\mathcal{A}_{\infty})\) obtained considering the columns \(j \in J\). In order to formulate the main results, let us define some additional objects. If \(\mathcal{A} = \{H_{1}, \dots, H_{n}\}\) is a generic arrangement of real hyperplanes in \(\mathcal{R}^{k}\), \(\mathbb{T} = \{L_{1}, L_{2}, L_{3}\}\) is a good \(3s\)-partition of indices in \([n]\), \(\alpha_\tau\) are normal vectors to \(H_{\tau}\in \mathcal{A}\) with \(\tau \in \{1, \dots,n\}\) and \(T = \{j_{1} ,\dots, j_{t}\}\) is a subset of \([n]\) that has empty intersection with \(L_{1} \cup L_{2} \cup L_{3}\), then we define vector spaces: \[ U_{i,j}^{\perp} = \{ v \in \mathbb{R}^{k} : v \circ \alpha_{\tau} = 0 \text{ for } \tau \in L_{i} \cap L_{j} \}, \] and \(W_{T}\) which is defined as \(\mathbb{R}^{k}\) if \(T = \emptyset\), or \(\{v \in \mathbb{R}^{k} : v \circ \alpha_{\tau}, \tau \in T \}\) if \(T\) is non-empty. Finally, we define the polynomial \[ \tilde{p}_{\mathbb{T},T}(a_{ij}) = \sum_{U \in \mathbb{U}_{\mathbb{T},T}}[\det U]^{2}, \] where \(\mathbb{U}_{\mathbb{T},T}\) is the set of all \(k \times k\)-submatrices of the \(3(k-s-t)\times k\) matrix having as rows the vectors spanning \(U_{i,j}^{\perp}\cap W_{T}\). The first main theorem of the paper can be formulated as follows. Theorem 1. Let \(\mathcal{A}\) be a generic arrangement of \(n\) hyperplanes in \(\mathbb{R}^{k}\), \(\mathbb{T}\) a good \(3s\)-partition, \(3s \leq n\), and \(T = [n]\setminus \cup_{L \in \mathbb{T}}L\). If \(W_{T}\) is the vector space defined as above, then the rank of \(\mathcal{A}_{\mathbb{T}}(\mathcal{A}_{\infty})\) is equal to \(2\) iff the restriction arrangement \[ \mathcal{A}_{W_{T}} = \bigg\{ H \cap \bigcap_{t \in T} H_{t} : H \in \mathcal{A} \setminus \{H_{i}\}_{i \in T} \bigg\} \] is dependent. With this choice of \(T\) and \(\mathbb{T}\), we get that \(p_{\mathbb{T}}(a_{ij}) = 0\) iff \(\tilde{p}_{\mathbb{T},T}(a_{ij}) = 0\). The second main result of the paper looks as follows. Theorem 2. The set of generic arrangements \(\mathcal{A}\) of \(n\) hyperplanes in \(\mathbb{C}^{3}\) that contains a dependent sub-arrangement is the set of points in a hypersurface in the Grassmannian \(\mathrm{Gr}(3,n)\) such that each component is the intersection of the Grassmannian with a quadric.