Maximal families of nodal varieties with defect (Q2069618)

This paper proves several statements concerning nodal hypersurfaces. One of them is the following: Let \(X \subset \mathbb{P}^{4}\) be a nodal hypersurface of degree \(d\ge 7\). Suppose that \(X\) is non-factorial and that \(X\) has at most \(2(d - 2)(d - 1)\) nodes. Then either \(X\) contains a plane and has \((d -1)^{2}\) nodes or \(X\) contains a quadric surface and has exactly \(2(d -1)(d -2)\) nodes. This is known as the Ciliberto-Di Gennaro conjecture and had been proved before for \(d=3\) and \(4\). More other new or old results about nodal hypersurfaces with positive defect are discussed and proved with a new strategy of proof.