Small codimension subvarieties in homogeneous spaces (Q633039)

In this article several properties are proved for low codimension subvarieties of rational homogeneous spaces having additional numerical properties. Let \(X=G/P\) be a homogeneous space and \(X^p(w)\) be a Schubert variety in \(X\). After giving the definition of admissible Schubert subvariety, the author proves the following Bertini-type theorem: Let \(f:Y\rightarrow X\) be a proper map with \(Y\) irreducible. Assume that \(X^p(v)\subset X^p(w)\) is an inclusion of Schubert varieties with \(X^p(v)\) admissible in \(X^p(w)\), and that the intersection of the cohomology classes \([\overline{f(Y)}]\) and \([X^p(v)]\) is non zero. Then \(f^{-1}(X^p(w))\) is connected. This extends a result of \textit{O. Debarre} on inverse images of Schubert varieties in the Grassmannian [Am. J. Math. 118, No. 6, 1347--1367 (1996; Zbl 0878.14014)]. Then, in the case of classical groups, the author applies the above theorem to obtain a connectedness result for the inverse image of the diagonal. This is obtained after a suitable generalization of a Deligne's trick. Another theorem refers to rational homogeneous varieties \(X\) with Picard number one: let \(Y\subset X\) be a smooth subvariety with the property that, for every subvariety \(Z\) of \(X\) with \(\dim Z=\text{ codim } Y\), \([Y][Z]\neq 0\). If \(2\dim Y-2\geq \dim X +\text{ eff }(X)\), then \(N^1(X)=\mathbb Z\). Here, \(\text{eff }(X)\) denotes the effectiveness of \(X\), i.e. the minimal \(k\) such that the bilinear form \((\cdot,\cdot)_{h^k}\) on \(H^{\dim X-k}({X,\mathbb Z})\) is positive definite, where \(h\) is an ample generator of \(\text{Pic}(X)\) and \((\sigma,\sigma')_{h^k}=\sigma\sigma' h^k\). Some applications and variants of the above results are also described.