Secants of Lagrangian Grassmannians (Q415446)

A Lagrangian Grassmannian \(LG(n,2n)\) is a projective variety parametrizing dimension \(n\) isotropic subspaces of a symplectic vector space \(V\) of dimension \(2n\). It is a homogeneous space of dimension \(\binom{n+1}{2}\). The authors study the dimensions of the third and the fourth secant varieties of \(LG(n,2n)\) for any \(n\geq4\). They prove that such varieties are neither \(3\)-defective nor \(4\)-defective, except for \(n=4\). In fact the authors show that \(LG(4,8)\) is \(3\)-defective with defect \(1\) and \(4\)-defective with defect \(4\). They also conjecture that \(LG(4,8)\) is the only defective Lagrangian Grassmannian.