Coherent sheaves on multiple curves (Q2496524)

An important aspect of the study of moduli spaces of vector bundles on a smooth projective curve is that of the degeneration of such bundles and such moduli spaces. This naturally involves looking at bundles on non-smooth curves and many results have been obtained using reduced curves with singularities. It may also be useful to consider non-reduced curves. Coherent sheaves on such curves also arise naturally in the study of sheaves of dimension \(1\) on surfaces. With these applications in mind, the author studies coherent sheaves on non-reduced projective curves. In fact, let \(C\) be a projective irreducible smooth curve embedded in a smooth projective variety \(X\) of dimension \(3\) over the complex numbers. Let \(Y\) be a closed Cohen-Macaulay subvariety of \(X\) whose underlying reduced subvariety is \(C\). We say that \(Y\) is primitive if it can be locally embedded in a surface. Such a curve possesses a canonical filtration \(C=C_0\subset C_1\subset\ldots\subset C_n=Y\), where \(C_i\) is the intersection of \(Y\) with the \(i\)th infinitesimal neighbourhood of \(C\) in \(X\). Using this filtration, one can define, for any coherent sheaf \({\mathcal E}\) on \(Y\), a canonical filtration \(0={\mathcal E}_{n+1}\subset{\mathcal E}_n\subset\dots\subset{\mathcal E}_1={\mathcal E}\), where \({\mathcal E}_{i+1}\) is the kernel of the restriction \({\mathcal E}_i\rightarrow{\mathcal E}_i| C\). The graded object \(\text{Gr}({\mathcal E})=\bigoplus^n_{i=1}{\mathcal E}_i/{\mathcal E}_{i+1}\) is then a coherent sheaf on \(C\) and we can define the generalised rank and degree of \({\mathcal E}\) as the rank and degree of \(\text{Gr}({\mathcal E})\). It is easy to deduce the Riemann-Roch Theorem for primitive curves. The author next defines quasi locally free sheaves as sheaves which are locally isomorphic to direct sums of the \({\mathcal O}_{C_i}\). Every coherent sheaf is quasi locally free on some non-empty open subset of \(Y\). Moreover the quasi locally free sheaves are precisely those for which all the terms of \(\text{Gr}({\mathcal E})\) are locally free on \(C\). When \(n=2\), i.e. when \(Y\) is a double curve, one can give a complete description of the torsion-free sheaves on \(Y\) and show that all such sheaves are reflexive. In particular the torsion-free sheaves of generalised rank \(2\) on \(C_2\) are of the form \({\mathcal I}_{2,Z}\otimes {\mathcal L}\), where \(Z\) is a finite subscheme of \(C\) and \({\mathcal L}\) is a line bundle on \(Y\). In the final section, the author begins the study of the moduli of stable sheaves of generalised rank \(3\) and generalised degree \(d\) on \(C_2\). These moduli spaces have many components, some of which are non-reduced.