Canonical syzygies of smooth curves on toric surfaces (Q2318401)

In the article under review, the authors study the syzygies of curves lying in toric surfaces. In doing so, they deduce from their main result that: \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] the canonical graded Betti table of a degree \(d \geq 5 + \lfloor \delta / 3 \rfloor\) curve in \(\mathbb{P}^2\) having \(\delta \leq 3\) nodes in general position depends on \(d\) and \(\delta\) only; \item[(ii)] the canonical graded Betti table of a smooth curve of weighted degree \(2d\) in \(\mathbb{P}(1,1,2)\), for some integer \(d \geq 3\), only depends on \(d\); and \item[(iii)] the canonical graded Betti table of smooth curves of weighted degree \(6d\) in \(\mathbb{P}(1,2,3)\), for some integer \(d \geq 2\), only depends on \(d\). \end{itemize} As one additional result, the authors verify that the conclusion of M. Green's syzygy conjecture, for canonically embedded curves, holds true for all smooth non-hyperelliptic curves with genus at least \(32\) or Clifford index at most equal to six. One aspect of the authors' approach is that if \(\Delta^{(1)}\) is the convex hull of the lattice points inside of the interior of a lattice polygon \(\Delta \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2\) and \(|\Delta^{(1)} \cap \mathbb{Z}| \geq 4\), then combinatorial properties of \(\Delta^{(1)}\) can be used to determine the Clifford index of curves lying in \(X_{\Delta}\), the toric surface which is determined by \(\Delta\). This interplay between combinatorial aspects of \(\Delta^{(1)}\) and curves lying in \(X_{\Delta}\) has origins in work of \textit{A. G. Khovanskii} [Funct. Anal. Appl. 11, 289--296 (1978; Zbl 0445.14019); translation from Funkts. Anal. Prilozh. 11, No. 4, 56--64 (1977)].