No label defined (Q4440488)

Let \(M\) be a Fano variety of Picard number \(1\) and \(M^s \subset M\) the smooth locus. Assume that there is a component \(H\) of the Hilbert scheme of complete curves on \(M\) such that (1) generic members of \(H\) sweep an open subset of \(M^s\) and (2) the subscheme \(H_y\subset H\) consisting of members passing through a generic point \(y\in M\) is an irreducible smooth complete variety, each member of which is an irreducible smooth rational curve in \(M^s\). Let \(T_y M\) be the tangent space of \(M\) at a smooth point \(y\). The tangents at \(y\) to all \(C \in H_y\) form a subvariety \({\mathcal C}_y\) of \({\mathbb P}(T_y M)\) called the variety of standard rational tangents (associated to \(H\)). Theorem. If \({\mathcal C}_y\) is nondegenerate in \({\mathbb P}(T_y M)\) then the tangent bundle \(T(M^s)\) is simple. This result is applied to the moduli space \(M\) of semistable vector bundles of rank \(r\) with a fixed determinant on a smooth projective curve \(X\) of genus \(g\) to deduce that \(T(M^s)\) is simple for \(g\geq 4\). It is shown that if \(X\) is a generic curve of genus \(g> 2r+1\), then the tangent morphism \(H_y \to {\mathbb P} (T_y M)\) is an embedding for a generic \(y\). It then follows that the set of generically finite surjective morphisms from a fixed complete variety to \(M\) is countable. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1019.00008].