A new Castelnuovo bound for codimension three subvarieties (Q412018)

Let \(X \subset \mathbb{P}^N\) be a smooth complex non-degenerate irreducible projective variety. For any integer \(k\), \(X\) is said \(k\)-normal if any divisor in the linear system \(|O_X(k)|\) can be obtained by cutting on \(X\) a hypersurface of degree \(k\). It is known that \(X\) is always \(k\)-normal for \(k\) big enough and it is a natural problem to look for bounds on \(k\), usually known as \textit{Castelnuovo bounds}. The paper under review shows a new Castelnuovo bound for \(X \subset \mathbb{P}^N\) of codimension three depending on \(N\) and on the degree of \(X \subset \mathbb{P}^N\) (see Theorem 3 and Proposition 4 in Section 5). The proof is mainly based on two steps: the first one (which comes from Lazarsfeld) is to project linearly onto a hypersurface and get a bound on the \(k\)-normality of \(X \subset \mathbb{P}^N\) depending on the codimension, the degree of \(X\) and the \(h\)-normality of the fibres of the projection; the second one (which comes from [\textit{L. Gruson} and \textit{C. Peskine}, On the smooth locus of aligned Hilbert schemes: the \(k\)-secant lemma and the general projection theorem, \url{arXiv:1010.2399v2}]) is the control of \(h\) obtained by the study of general projections of projective varieties.