Components of the Hilbert scheme of smooth projective curves using ruled surfaces (Q2226553)

Let \(H_{d,g} (\mathbb P^r)\) denote the Hilbert scheme parametrizing curves \(C \subset \mathbb P^r\) of degree \(d\) and arithmetic genus \(g\) and let \({\mathcal I}_{d,g,r} \subset H_{d,g} (\mathbb P^r)\) be the union of irreducible components whose general member is a smooth, irreducible, non-degenerate curve. \textit{L. Ein} showed that \({\mathcal I}_{d,g,r}\) is irreducible if \(d \geq g+r\) when \(r = 3\) [Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. 19, 469--478 (1986; Zbl 0606.14003)] and \(r=4\) [\textit{L. Ein}, Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 46, 83--87 (1987; Zbl 0647.14012)], but there are various examples showing reducibility of \({\mathcal I}_{d,g,r}\) when \(d \geq g+r\) and \(r > 4\), disproving a claim of Severi. Most of these examples were constructed with families of curves that are \(m\)-fold covers of \(\mathbb P^1\) with \(m \geq 3\), but the authors gave an example with a family of curves that are double covers of irrational curves [Taiwanese J. Math. 21, 583--600 (2017; Zbl 1390.14019)]. Here the authors reconstruct their example in a more geometric way as a family \(\mathcal D\) of curves on ruled surfaces. The new construction allows them to show that \(\mathcal D\) is generically smooth of expected dimension, hence a regular component. When including the distinguished component dominating \(\mathcal M_g\), this gives the first examples of Hilbert schemes \({\mathcal I}_{d,g,r}\) satisfying \(d \geq g+r\) with \textit{two} regular components.