On the irreducibility of cones of 3-secant planes (Q2193915)

The author considers the variety \(\operatorname{Sec}_2(X)\) of \(3\)-secant \(2\)-planes to a smooth projective variety \(X\subset\mathbb P^r\) In particular, the author studies the \textit{irreducible \(3\)-secant cones property} for \(X\), which holds when for a general \(P\in\mathbb P^r\) the family of \(3\)-secant \(2\)-planes to \(X\) passing through \(P\) is irreducible. The analysis concerns the case of varieties \(X\) which are \textit{\(2\)-smooth}, in the sense that \(X\) is smooth and every subscheme of length \(2\) in \(X\) imposes independent conditions to hyperplanes. The main result, which extends a result of \textit{A. F. Lopez} and \textit{Z. Ran} for the variety of secant lines (see [Duke Math. J. 117, No. 3, 389--401 (2003; Zbl 1049.14041)]), says that when \(X\) is \(2\)-smooth, the variety \(\operatorname{Sec}_1(X)\) of secant lines to \(X\) dominates \(\mathbb P^r\), and the dimension \(n\) of \(X\) satisfies the inequality \(n>4(r-2)/7\), then \(X\) has the irreducible \(3\)-secant cones property. The proof is based on the \textit{Infinitesimal Terracini's Lemma}: an infinitesimal analysis of the relations between the secant and the tangential variety of \(X\).