Characterizations of Veronese and Segre varieties (Q408956)

The authors give a synopsis of the methods of characterizing Veronese and Segre varieties which have been developed during the last thirty years. Many published sources are given, they also refer to results from hitherto unpublished papers and preprints. Most of the results involve finite objects, on several occasions results are carried over to the infinite case. Characterizations of Veroneseans using tangent spaces are mentioned in the papers [\textit{F. Mazocca} and \textit{N. Melone}, Discrete Math. 48, 243--252 (1984; Zbl 0537.51014); \textit{J. W. P. Hirschfeld} and the first author, General Galois geometries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (1991; Zbl 0789.51001); the authors, Eur. J. Comb. 25, No. 2, 275--285 (2004; Zbl 1040.51013)]. The latter result has been generalized to skewfields by Schillewaert and the second author, while Segre varieties are treated in [the authors, ``Characterization of Segre varieties'', Preprint]. They point out characterizations using subvarieties presented in [\textit{G. Tallini}, Atti Accad. Naz. Lincei, VIII. Ser., Rend., Cl. Sci. Fis. Mat. Nat. 24, 19--23, 135--138 (1958; Zbl 0080.14003)], and, in a general setting, in [the authors, Quart. J. Math. 55, 99--113 (2004; Zbl 1079.51004)]. Intersection numbers are used in [\textit{E. Ferrara Dentice} and \textit{G. Marino}, Discrete Math. 308, No. 2--3, 299--302 (2008; Zbl 1151.51011); Hirschfeld and the first author, loc. cit.; the authors, J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 110, No. 2, 217--221 (2005; Zbl 1072.51011)] to characterize Veronese varieties \({\mathcal V}^4_2\) in \(PG(5,q)\), and for higher order Veroneseans they refer to [\textit{J. Schillewaert} and the authors, ``A characterization of the finite Veronesean by intersection properties'', Ann. Comb. 16, No. 2, 331--348 (2012; \url{doi:10.1007/s00026-012-0136-7})]. Point sets of quadric Veroneseans, finite or infinite, may be also be characterized as incidence structures (cf. [the authors, Q. J. Math. 55, No. 1, 99--113 (2004; Zbl 1079.51004); Combinatorica 31, No. 5, 615--629 (2011; Zbl 1299.51003)]). By [\textit{C. Zanella}, Bull. Belg. Math. Soc. Simon Stevin 3, No. 1, 65--79 (1996; Zbl 0859.51007); the authors, ``Characterization of Segre varieties'', Preprint], the same is true for Segre varieties.