On the number of flats tangent to convex hypersurfaces in random position (Q2283120)

Given \(d_{k,n} = (k+1)(n-k)\) projective hypersurfaces \(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}} \subset \mathbb{RP}^{n}\), a classical problem in enumerative geometry is to determine how many \(k\)-dimensional projective subspaces of \(\mathbb{RP}^{n}\) are simultaneously tangent to \(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}}\). Geometrically speaking, consider the following scenario. Let \(\mathbb{G}(k,n)\) be the Grassmannian of \(k\)-dimensional projective subspaces, if \(X \subset \mathbb{RP}^{n}\) is a smooth hypersurface, we denote by \(\Omega_{k}(X) \subset \mathbb{G}(k,n)\) the variety of \(k\)-tangents to \(X\), i.e., the set of \(k\)-flats that are tangent to \(X\) at some point. The number of \(k\)-flats simultaneously tangent to hypersurfaces \(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}} \subset \mathbb{RP}^{n}\) equals to \[\# \Omega_{k}(X_{1}) \cap \dots \cap \# \Omega_{k}(X_{d_{k,n}}).\] This number, obviously, depends on the position of the hypersurfaces that we are considering in that problem. It is quite natural to look at this problem from a viewpoint of the randomness. One can ask for the expected value for the number of tangents to hypersurfaces in random position. We say that hypersurfaces \(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}} \subset \mathbb{RP}^{n}\) are in random position if each one of them is randomly translated by elements \(g_{1}, \dots, g_{d_{k,n}}\) sampled independently from the orthogonal group \(O(n+1)\) endowed with the uniform distribution. The main result of the paper is devoted to the case of convex hypersurfaces. We say that a subset \(C \subset \mathbb{RP}^{n}\) is called (strictly) convex if \(C\) does not intersect some hyperplane \(L\) and is (strictly) convex in the affine chart \(\mathbb{RP}^{n} \setminus L \simeq \mathbb{R}^{n}\). Now we say that a smooth hypersurface \(X \subset \mathbb{RP}^{n}\) is said to be convex if it bounds a strictly convex open set of \(\mathbb{RP}^{n}\). Finally, let us denote by \(\tau_{k}(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}})\) the average number of \(k\)-flats tangent to \(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}} \subset \mathbb{RP}^{n}\). Main Result. The average number of \(k\)-flats simultaneously tangent to convex hypersurfaces \(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}}\) in random position equals to \[\tau_{k}(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}}) =\delta_{k,n}\cdot \prod_{i=1}^{d_{k,n}}\frac{|\Omega_{k}(X_{i})|}{|Sch(k,n)|},\] where \(\delta_{k,n}\) is the so-called expected degree (i.e., the average number of \(k\)-flats incident to \(d_{k,n}\)-many random \((n-k-1)\)-flats), \(|Sch(k,n)|\) is the volume of the special Schubert variety of \(k\)-flats meeting a fixed \((n-k-1)\)-flat, and \(|\Omega_{k}(X)|\) is the volume of the manifold \(\Omega_{k}(X) \subset \mathbb{G}(k,n)\) of all \(k\)-flats tangent to \(X\). As a nice corollary, the authors show the following universal upper bound \[\tau_{k}(X_{1}, \dots, X_{d_{k,n}}) \leq \delta_{k,n}\cdot 4^{d_{k,n}}.\] Moreover, the authors present analogous results for semialgebraic hypersurfaces (not necessarily convex) satisfying some non-degeneracy assumptions.