Varieties in cages: a little zoo of algebraic geometry (Q2125408)

In the paper under review, the author studies varieties in cages, which sounds quite interesting. A \(d^{\{n\}}\)-cage \(K\) is a configuration of \(n\) distinctly colored groups of \(d\) hyperplanes each located in an \(n\)-dimensional space (projective or affine) in such a way that \(K\) generates exactly \(d^{n}\) points where the hyperplanes of all \(n\) distinct colors \(\alpha_{1}, \dots, \alpha_{n}\) intersect transversally. It follows that any \(n\)-tuple of distinctly colored hyperplanes are in general position in the ambient \(n\)-space. These points are called the nodes of the cage. First very natural observation tells us that \(d^{\{n\}}\)-cages form a Zariski open set \(\mathcal{K}\) in the \((dn^{2})\)-dimensional space \((\mathrm{Sym}^{d}(\mathbb{P}^{n*}))^{n}\), and the group of projective transformations \(\mathrm{PGL}(n+1)\) acts naturally on the set \(\mathcal{K}\). The main problem that the author addresses in the present paper is to describe the varieties that contain all \(d^{n}\) nodes of a given cage \(K\). It turns out that these varieties are quite special. In order to formulate the main results, we need a somehow technical preparation. Let \(\mathbb{K} \in \{\mathbb{R},\mathbb{C}\}\) and denote by \(\mathcal{L}_{j}\) a degree \(d\) homogeneous polynomial whose zero set is the union of \(d\) hyperplanes of a particular color \(\alpha_{j}\). Let \(I^{n}(d)\) be the subset \(\{I=(i_{1}, \dots, i_{n})\}\) of the lattice \(\mathbb{Z}_{+}^{n}\) such that each \(i_{j} \in [1, \dots, d]\), so \(I^{n}(d)\) is an \(n\)-dimensional cube of the size \(d\). A set of nodes \(T\) from \(d^{\{n\}}\)-cage \(K\) is called simplicial if, with respect to some ordering of the hyperplanes in each group, it is comprised of the nodes \(\{p_{I}\}_{I \in I^{n}(d)}\) with \(|I| := \sum_{j=1}^{n}i_{j} \leq d+1\). A set of nodes \(A\) from a cage \(K\) is called supra-simplicial if, with respect to some orderings of the hyperplanes in each group, it is comprised of the nodes \(\{p_{I}\}_{I \in I^{n}(d)}\) subject to the constraints \(|I|\leq d+2\). Let \(H_{j,i}\) be the \(i\)-th hyperplane of the color \(\alpha_{j}\) and let \(L_{j,i}\) be a homogeneous linear polynomial in the coordinates \((y_{0}, y_{1},\dots, y_{n})\) on the space \(\mathbb{A}^{n+1}\) that defines \(H_{j,i}\). Each \(L_{j,i}\) is determined, up to proportionality, by \(H_{j,i}\), so one can fix particular linear forms \(\{L_{j,i}\}\). Put \(\mathcal{L}_{j} =\prod_{i \in [1,\dots,d]}L_{j,i}\). For any non-zero vector \(\lambda=(\lambda_{1}, \dots, \lambda_{n}) \in \mathbb{K}^{n}\), one considers the homogeneous polynomial of degree \(d\) given by \[ \mathcal{P}_{K,\lambda}:=\sum_{j \in [1,\dots,n]} \lambda_{j}\cdot \mathcal{L}_{j}. \] Theorem A. Consider a subvariety \(V \subset \mathbb{P}^{n}_{\mathbb{K}}\) given by one or several homogeneous polynomials having equations of degree \(\leq d\). If \(V\) contains all the nodes from a supra-simplicial set \(A\) of a \(d^{\{n\}}\)-cage \(K\) in \(\mathbb{P}^{n}\), then \(V\) contains all \(d^{n}\) nodes of the cage. Moreover, any such variety \(V\) is given by polynomial equations of the form \(\{\mathcal{P}_{K,\lambda} =0\}_{\lambda}\) for an appropriate choice of vectors \(\lambda\). In contrast, no such variety \(V\) contains all the nodes from a simplicial set \(\tilde{T}\) of any \((d+1)^{\{n\}}\)-cage \(\tilde{K}\subset \mathbb{P}^{n}_{\mathbb{K}}\). We say that a purely \((n-k)\)-dimensional Zariski closed subset \(V \subset \mathbb{P}^{n}\) over a field of characteristic zero is a complete intersection of the type \((d_{1},\dots, d_{k})\) if \(V\) is an intersection of hypersurfaces \(H_{1},\dots, H_{k} \subset \mathbb{P}^{n}\) of degrees \(d_{1}, \dots, d_{k}\) such that at a generic (non-singular) point \(x\) of each component of \(V\), the embedded \((n-k)\)-dimensional tangent space \(T_{x}V\subset T_{x}\mathbb{P}^{n}\) is the transversal intersection of the tangent hyperspaces \(\{T_{X}H_{j}\subset T_{x}\mathbb{P}^{n}\}_{j \in [1, \dots,k]}\). Theorem B. Let \(V \subset \mathbb{P}^{n}_{\mathbb{C}}\) be a subvariety of codimension \(s\) given by one or several homogeneous polynomial equations of degree \(\leq d\). If \(V\) contains all the nodes from a supra-simplicial set \(A\) of a \(d^{\{n\}}\)-cage \(K\), then \(V\) is a complete intersection of the multi-degree \((d,\dots,d)\) which is smooth at each node of the cage \(K\), Thus \(\deg V = d^{n-\dim V}\). Corollary. If a variety \(V \subset \mathbb{P}^{n}_{\mathbb{C}}\) given by homogeneous polynomials of degrees \(\leq d\) is not a complete intersection, then it cannot be trapped in any \(d^{\{n\}}\)-cage in \(\mathbb{P}^{n}_{\mathbb{C}}\).