Vanishing Theorems, A Theorem of Severi, and the Equations Defining Projective Varieties (Q3979561)

The authors present a vanishing theorem about the cohomology of a smooth complex projective variety under a condition in terms of the codimension of the variety and the degrees of the generating hypersurfaces. They call it a ``variant'' of a theorem of \textit{F. Severi } [Rend. Circ. Mat. Palermo 17, 73-103 (1903; JFM 34.0700.01)]. --- They point out a surprising number of applications to questions involving the equations defining projective varieties like Cohen-Macaulayness, complete intersection, Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity, Hodge type and projectively normal embeddings. The idea of the proof is to consider a blowing-up along the variety and to apply the Kawamata-Viehweg vanishing theorem. See also \textit{Y. Kawamata}, Math. Ann. 261, 43--46 (1982; Zbl 0476.14007); \textit{E. Viehweg}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 335, 1--8 (1982; Zbl 0485.32019); \textit{H. Esnault} and \textit{E. Viehweg}, Math. Ann. 263, 75-86 (1983; Zbl 0489.14016); and Invent. Math. 78, 445--490 (1984; Zbl 0532.10020)].