A bound on the plurigenera of projective surfaces (Q5946466)

\textit{J. Harris} [Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa, Cl. Sci., IV. Ser. 8, 35-68 (1981; Zbl 0467.14005)] gave a sharp bound for the geometric genus of a variety of degree \(d\) in \({\mathbb P}^r\), extending classical results of Castelnuovo and Halphen for curves. Here the author considers the analogous question for the \(i\)-th plurigenus (\(i\geq 2\)) of a projective surface \(V\) of general type, obtaining a sharp bound under the assumption that \(V\) is smooth minimal irreducible and non degenerate and that \(d>2r^2-8\). The surfaces attaining the bound are classified. The author also shows that under more restrictive assumptions on \(d\) and \(r\) the bound also holds for surfaces that are not minimal or of general type. The main idea is that, in view of the vanishing theorems for adjoint divisors, for \(i\geq 2\) the \(i\)-th plurigenus of \(V\) can be computed by means of the Riemann-Roch theorem. The value thus obtained can be bounded in terms of \(K^2_V\) and \(p_g(V)\), so that one can now use Harris's bound for \(p_g(V)\) and the bound for \(K^2_V\) established by the author [\textit{V. Di Gennaro}, Commun. Algebra 29, 141-156 (2001; Zbl 1063.14005)].