Singularities and syzygies of secant varieties of nonsingular projective curves (Q2208428)

Let \(C\) be a smooth projective curve of genus \(g \geq 0\), and \(L\) be a very ample line bundle on \(C\). For \(C \subset {\mathbb P}(H^0(X,L))={\mathbb P}^r\), the \(k\)-secant variety \(\Sigma_k \subset {\mathbb P}^r\) is defined as the closure of the \(k+1\)-secant \(k\)-planes to \(C\) in \({\mathbb P}^r\). The main goal of the paper under review is the study of singularities and syzygies of the \(\Sigma_k\)'s for \(k \geq 0\). The general philosophy, as pointed out by the authors, is that {\textit singularities and syzygies interact each other in the way that the singularities of \(\Sigma_k\) determine its syzygies while the syzygies of \(\Sigma_{k-1}\) determine the singularities of \(\Sigma_k\)}. The first main result in the paper (see Thm.1.1) describes the singularities of the secant varieties: if the degree of \(L\) is greater than or equal to \(2g+2k+1\) then the \(k\)-secant variety has normal Du Bois singularities. Moreover, the following trichotomy holds: (1) \(g=0\) if and only if \(\Sigma_k\) is Fano with log terminal singularities; (2) \(g=1\) if and only if \(\Sigma_k\) is Calabi-Yau with log canonical but not log terminal singularities; (3) \(g \geq 2\) if and only if there is no boundary divisor \(\Gamma\) on \(\Sigma_k\) such that \((\Sigma_k, \Gamma)\) is a log canonical pair. The second main result (see Thm.1.2) describes the syzygies of \(\Sigma_k \subset {\mathbb P}^r\): if the degree of \(L\) is greater than or equal to \(2g+2k+1+p\) then \(\Sigma_k \subset {\mathbb P}^r\) is arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay, satisfies the property \(N_{k+2,p}\), (it is projectively normal, ideal-theoretically cut out by the hypersurfaces of degree \(k+2\), and the first \(p\) steps of the minimal graded free resolution of \(\Sigma_k\) are linear), the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of \({\mathcal O}_{\Sigma_k}\) is \(2k + 2\), unless \(g = 0\), in which case is \(k + 1\). Also the dimension of global sections of \(\omega_{\Sigma_k}\) is computed. Several interesting examples are provided, a vanishing theorem on the Cartesian products of curves (see Section 4) of independent interest is also proved, and some open problems on secant varieties are discussed (see Section 6).