Elliptic surfaces and linear systems with fat points (Q2272966)

Let \(E\) be an elliptic curve and let \(V\) be the vector bundle of rank \(2\) obtained as a non-trivial extension \(0\to O_E\to V\to O_E\to 0\). Consider the ruled surface \(S=\mathbb P(E)\). The author studies the interpolation problem with multiplicities, with respect to the line bundle \(L=F+\ell D\) on \(S\), where \(F\) is the fiber over a fixed point and \(D\) is the section induced by the embedding \(O_E\to V\) in the exact sequence above. The behavior of general divisors on ruled surfaces with respect to the interpolation problem is well known to be often quite special, even when one imposes just one single point of multiplicity \(m\geq 3\). The author proves that sets \(m_1P_1+\dots+m_nP_n\), with \(P_1,\dots, P_n\in S\) general points, impose the expected number of conditions to the divisor \(L\) if and only if the same is true for \(n=1\) (i.e. for a single multiple point). Then, the author gives examples, in positive characteristic, of ruled surfaces \(S\) as above for which a single multiple point fails to impose the expected number of conditions to the divisor \(L=F+\ell D\).