The canonical ring of a 3-connected curve (Q2449566)

The authors study the canonical ring \(R(C,\omega _C) = \bigoplus_{k \geq 0} H^0(C,\omega _C ^{\otimes k})\) of a projective curve \(C\) that is either reduced with planar singularities or contained in a smooth algebraic surface. They prove that the canonical ring \(R(C, \omega _C)\) is generated in degree \(1\) if the curve \(C\) is \(3\)-connected and not honestly hyperelliptic. So they generalize to singular curves a classical theorem of Noether for smooth curves. A curve \(C\) is \(3\)-connected if for every decomposition \(C=A+B\) in effective both non-zero curves, one has \(A \cdot B \geq 3\). A curve \(C\) is honestly hyperelliptic if there exists a finite morphism \(C \rightarrow \mathbb P ^1\) of degree \(2\). Moreover the authors show that \(R(C,L) = \bigoplus_{k \geq 0} H^0(C,L ^{\otimes k})\) is generated in degree \(1\) if the curve \(C\) is reduced with planar singularities and \(L\) is an invertible sheaf with \(\deg L_{|B} \geq 2p_a(B) +1\) for every subcurve \(B\) of \(C\). This is a generalization of a theorem of Castelnuovo on the projective normality of smooth projective curves. Their proof is based on the generalization to singular curves of Clifford's theorem given by the authors in [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 108, No. 1, 225--252 (2014; Zbl 1284.14044)].