On Very Ample Vector Bundles on Curves (Q4360880)

The paper studies vector bundles on curves (a subject which has attracted very much attention in the last years), and its aims are to generalize to vector bundles some aspects of the theory of line bundles on curves which are classical (very ampleness, speciality). A vector bundle \(E\) on a curve \(C\) is very ample if \({\mathcal O}_{{\mathbb{P}}(E)}(1)\) is very ample on \({\mathbb{P}}(E)\), i.e. if it embeds \({\mathbb{P}}(E)\) as a scroll into a projective space. Several results are given about non-special (i.e. with \(H^1(C,E))=0\)) very ample vector bundles, e.g.: -- for \(g(C)\geq 2\) a non special very ample vector bundle exists if and only if \[ \text{deg }E \geq \text{rk}(E) (g+1)+2; \] -- if \(C\) is hyperelliptic and \(g \geq 2\), any very ample vector bundle on \(C\) is non-special. Then the main result is proved, i.e. that if \(g\geq 2\) and \(E\) is very ample, then \[ h^0(\text{det }E) \geq h^0(E) + \text{rk}(E) - 2. \] Conditions are given for equality to hold. As an application, one gets that any \(r\)-dimensional scroll over a curve \(C\), embedded in \({\mathbb{P}}^{2r}\), \(2\leq r \leq 4\), has \(g(C) \leq 1\) (it is conjectured that this is true for any \(r\geq 2\)).