Discriminant loci of ample and spanned line bundles (Q2464519)

Let \(X\) be an irreducible nonsingular complex projective variety of dimension \(n\) and let \(L\) be an ample line bundle on \(X\) such that there exists a linear system \(| V| \subset | H^{0}(X,L)| \) with \(\dim | V| =N\) and \(V\) spanning \(L\). Let \(\phi_{V}:X\to {\mathbb{P}}^{N}\) be its morphism. Then the discriminant locus \(\mathcal{D}(X,V)\) is defined as the algebraic set of \(| V| \) parametrizing the singular elements of \(| V| \). If \(\phi_{V}\) is an embedding, then \(\mathcal{D}(X,V)\) is the dual variety \(\phi_{V}(X)^{\vee}\subset ({\mathbb{P}}^{N})^{\vee}\) and several interesting theorems about \(\mathcal{D}(X,V)\) are known (for example, the biduality theorem, results about the codegree, and so on). In this paper, the authors generalize these to the more general setting of an ample line bundle \(L\) spanned by \(V\). If \(\phi_{V}\) is an immersion, then \(\phi_{V}(X)^{\vee}=\mathcal{D}(X,V)\). When we consider the case where \(\phi_{V}\) is not immersion, it is important to consider the notion of jumping set \(\mathcal{J}_{i}(X,V)\) for \(1\leq i\leq n\) which was defined in [\textit{A. Lanteri, M. Palleschi, A. J. Sommese}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 477, 199--219 (1996; Zbl 0851.14002)]. Namely \(\mathcal{J}_{i}(X,V):=\{x\in X\;:\;\text{rank}(d\phi_{V}(x))\leq n-i\}\). First the authors give a generalization of the biduality theorem. They prove that any irreducible component of \(\mathcal{D}(X,V)\) is the dual of the image of a component of a jumping set. Furthermore the dual of any irreducible component of \(\mathcal{D}(X,V)\) is contained in \(\phi_{V}(X)\). Next the authors study the irreducibility of \(\mathcal{D}(X,V)\). In general, it is known that if \(\phi_{V}\) is an immersion, then \(\mathcal{D}(X,V)\) is irreducible. In this paper, the authors show that, for any curves \(X\), \(\phi_{V}\) is an immersion if and only if \(\mathcal{D}(X,V)\) is irreducible. But this is not true in higher dimension and they provided examples of surfaces for which the discriminant locus is irreducible but \(\phi_{V}\) is not an immersion. They also prove that if \(\mathcal{D}(X,L)\) is irreducible, then the \(n\)-th jumping set \(\mathcal{J}_{n}(X,V)\) is empty. Furthermore they consider the degree of the discriminant locus which is called codegree of \((X,L,V)\). This invariant is also called the class of \(\phi_{V}(X)\subset {\mathbb{P}}^{N}\) when \(\dim \mathcal{D}(X,V)=N-1\). In this paper, the authors prove that there are no triples \((X,L,V)\) with codegree one and provided the complete list of curves and surfaces of codegree two and three by using an expression of the top Chern class of the first jet bundle involving the degrees of the maximal dimensional components of the discriminant and by several consequences of this. The authors also provide some problems and remarks concerning discriminant loci.