Normal bundles of rational curves in projective space (Q1745303)

The authors study the scheme of projective rational curves whose normal bundle has a given splitting type. More precisely, the authors fix a sequence \(b=(b_1,\dots,b_{n-1})\) of integers, with \(1 < b_1\leq b_2\leq \dots \leq b_{n-1}\), and consider the (locally closed) locus \(M_e(b)\) of morphisms \(f:\mathbb P^1\to\mathbb P^n\) of degree \(e\), such that the normal budle \(N_f\) splits as a sum of line bundles of degrees \(e+b_1,\dots,e+b_{n-1}\) (so that \(\sum b_i=2e-2\)). For the case \(n=3\), several authors determined the possible splitting types of \(N_f\), and found that \(M_e(b)\) is either empty or it is irreducible of the expected dimension, when this last integer is positive. Recently, \textit{A. Alzati} and \textit{R. Re} [Algebr. Geom. 4, No. 1, 79--103 (2017; Zbl 1369.14066)] provided examples of reducible spaces \(M_e(b)\), in the case \(n>3\). The authors prove that some locus \(M_e(b)\) can be non empty even if the expected dimension is negative. Then, they focus on sequences \(b\) of type \(b_1=\dots = b_k=d\), \(b_{k+1}=\dots = b_{n-r-1}=q\), \(b_{n-r}=\dots = b_{n-1}=q+1\), where \(q,r\) are respectively the quotient and the remainder of the division \(2e-2-dk=q(n-1-k)+r\), for a fixed pair of integers \(d,k\) such that \(dk\leq 2e-2\). For such sequences, denoted by \(d^k\), the authors prove that when \(e\gg 0\) then \(M_e(d^k)\) has at least \(1+k/2\) components, some of them of dimension bigger than the expected value. Sharper results are provided for the case \(d=2\).