Singularities of duals of Grassmannians (Q657994)

If \(X\subset {\mathbb P}^N\) is a smooth irreducible nondegenerate projective variety and \(X^*\subset {\mathbb P}^N\) is its dual variety, then the locus of bitangent hyperplanes \(h\in X^*\) (i.e., such that \(h\) is tangent to at least two points of \(X\)) is a component of the singular locus of \(X^*\). The author provides a sufficient condition for this component to be of maximal dimension and shows how it can be used to determine which dual varieties of Grassmannians are normal. The main result of this paper is the following Theorem. Let \(X=G(k, n)\subset {\mathbb P}^N\), \(N={\binom{n}{k}-1}\), be the Grassmannian of \(k\)-planes in \({\mathbb C}^n\), \(k\leqslant n-k\), \(k\geqslant 3\). Then \(X^*\) is normal if and only if \((k, n)=(3, 6), (3, 7)\), or \((3, 8)\).