Elliptic curves on spinor varieties (Q2392891)

Fix an integer \(n>0\) and a non-degenerate quadratic form \(q\) on \(\mathbb {C}^{2n}\). Let \(\mathbb {G}\) be the orthogonal variety of all maximal isotropic subspaces of \((\mathbb {C}^{2n},q)\). \(\mathbb {G}\) has two connected components and any of them, \(X\), is called a spinor variety. \(X\) is a smooth rational homogeneous space of dimension \(n(n-1)/2\) with Picard group \(\mathbb {Z}\). Fix an effective class \(\alpha \in A_1(X)\) and call \(d\) its degree with respect to the ample generator of \(\mathrm{Pic}(X)\). Fix an elliptic curve \(C\) and let \({\mathbf {Hom}}_{\alpha }(C,X)\) be the scheme parametrizing all morphisms \(f: C \to X\) with \(f_\ast [C] =\alpha\). In this paper the author proves that \({\mathbf {Hom}}_{\alpha }(C,X)\) is irreducible for all \(d\geq 2\) (it has dimension \(2(n-1)d\) if \(d\geq n-1\) and dimension \(2(n-1)d + (n-1)(n-d-1)/2\) if \(2 \leq d \leq n-2\)). This type of results arises for low \(n\) in the study of vector bundles [\textit{A. Iliev} and \textit{D. Markushevich}, Asian J. Math. 11, No. 3, 427--458 (2007; Zbl 1136.14031)]. For maps from \(\mathbb {P}^1\) to homogeneous spaces, see the author in [Ann. Inst. Fourier 52, No. 1, 105--132 (2002; Zbl 1037.14021), J. Algebra 294, No. 2, 431--462 (2005; Zbl 1093.14070)]. The irreducibility for elliptic curves was proved (also for a few other homogeneous varieties) with a different method in [\textit{B. Pasquier} and \textit{N. Perrin}, Doc. Math. J. DMV 18, 679--704 (2013; Zbl 1299.14041)].