The number of irreducible components of the locus of nonbirational projection centers (Q6057748)

Let \(X\subset \mathbb{P}^N\) be an integral and non-degenerate \(n\)-dimensional variety defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(0\). Assume \(N\ge n+2\). For each \(p\in \mathbb{P}^N\) let \(\ell_p: \mathbb{P}^N\setminus \{p\}\to \mathbb{P}^{N-1}\) denote the linear projection from \(p\). If \(p\in X\) (resp. \(p\notin X\), \(\ell_p\) induces an inner (resp. outer) projection. The point \(p\) is said to be a \textit{nonbirational center} if the restriction of \(\ell_p\) to \(X\setminus \{p\}\) is not birational onto its image. Let \(\mathcal{B}(X)\) denote the set of all non-birational center. The closure \(\mathcal{C}(X)\) of the set of all outer nonbirational center is called the strict Segre locus of \(X\) and it was studied in [\textit{A. Calabri} and \textit{C. Ciliberto}, Adv. Geom. 1, No. 1, 97--106 (2001; Zbl 0981.14010)] who proved that \(\mathcal{C}(X)\) is a finite union of linear spaces of dimension at most \(n-1\). In the paper under review the full \(\mathcal{B}(X)\) is handled for \(n=1\), i.e. for integral curves, in which \(\mathcal {B}(X)\) has finite support. Among the results proved here there is an upper bound on \(\deg (\mathcal {B}(X))\) in terms of the degree \(\deg(X)\), the arithmetic genus \(p_a(X)\) and the codimension \(e:= N-e\). For each \(p\in \mathcal {B}(X)\) the author associate an integer \(\eta_p\) and get a formula involving it with as a corollary the inequality \((e-2)\#(\mathcal{B}(X))+(e-1)\#(\mathcal{C}(X))\le -p_a(X) +\frac{(d-e)(d-e-1)}{2}\).