Irreducibility and components rigid in moduli of the Hilbert scheme of smooth curves (Q2312834)

The authors prove folklore conjectures about rigidity in families of curves in \(\mathbb P^3_{\mathbb C}\). Let \(\mathbf{Hilb}^{dz+1-g} (\mathbb P^r)\) denote the Hilbert scheme of one dimensional closed subschemes in \(\mathbb P^r\) of degree \(d\) and arithmetic genus \(g\) and let \(H_{d,g,r} \subset \mathbf{Hilb}^{dz+g-1} (\mathbb P^r)\) denote the union of irreducible components whose general member is smooth, connected and non-degenerate. An irreducible component \(Z \subset H_{d,g,r}\) is \textit{rigid in moduli} if the image of the natural rational map \(Z \to {\mathcal M}_g\) consists of a single point. It is expected that \(H_{d,g,r}\) has no component rigid in moduli unless \(g=0\). Using varieties of linear series [\textit{E. Arbarello} et al., Geometry of algebraic curves. Volume I. Berlim: Springer (1985; Zbl 0559.14017)] and classic tools such as the Accola-Griffiths-Harris bound [\textit{J. Harris}, Curves in projective space. With the collaboration of David Eisenbud. Seminaire de Mathematiques Superieures, 85. Seminaire Scientifique OTAN (NATO Advanced Study Institute), Department de Mathematiques et de Statistique - Universite de Montreal. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Les Presses de l'Universite de Montreal. (1982; Zbl 0511.14014)], the authors prove this expectation when \(r=3\). They deduce a related conjecture [\textit{J. Harris} and \textit{I. Morrison}, Moduli of curves. New York, NY: Springer (1998; Zbl 0913.14005)], which says that the only family of curves whose deformations are all induced from automorphisms of \(\mathbb P^3\) is the family of rational normal curves. They give partial results for restricted ranges on the triples \((d,g,r)\) with \(r > 3\).