Dimension of the space of conics on a Fano hypersurface (Q2069823)

For a hypersurface \(X \subset \mathbb P^n\) of degree \(d\), let \(R_e (X)\) denote the open subset of the Hilbert scheme \(\text{Hilb}^{et+1} (X)\) corresponding to smooth rational curves \(C \subset X\) of degree \(e\). The dimension of \(R_e (X)\) at \(C\) is at least the expected dimension \((n+1-d)e +n - 4\). Answering a question of Debarre and de Jong, \textit{R. Beheshti} showed that \(R_1 (X)\) has expected dimension if \(X \subset \mathbb P^n\) is a smooth Fano hypersurface of degree \(d \leq 6\) [J. Reine Angew. Math. 592, 1--21 (2006; Zbl 1094.14029)] and later improved this result to cover \(d \leq 8\) [Math. Ann. 360, 753--768 (2014; Zbl 1304.14065)]. The result for \(d \leq 6\) was recovered by \textit{J. M. Landsberg} and \textit{C. Robles} using a different method [J. Reine Angew. Math. 631, 221--235 (2009; Zbl 1178.53052)]. For conics, \textit{A. Collino} et al. showed that \(R_2 (X)\) has expected dimension if \(X \subset \mathbb P^4\) is a smooth quadric [Rend. Semin. Mat. (Torino) 38, 151--181 (1980; Zbl 0474.14023)]. The author studies conics on a smooth Fano hypersurface \(X \subset \mathbb P^n\) of degree \(d \leq 6\), showing that if \(R \subset R_2 (X)\) is an irreducible component such that the \(2\)-plane spanned by the general \(C \in R\) is not contained in \(X\), then \(R\) has expected dimension. Examples are given to show that the dimension of \(R_2 (X)\) can be larger than expected when \(X\) contains certain linear varieties and also that the main result fails for \(d = 10\).