Varieties with minimal secant degree and linear systems of maximal dimension on surfaces (Q817569)

Let \(X \subset \mathbb P^r\) be an integral non-degenerate complex projective variety and \(S^k(X)\), \(k \geq 0\), the varieties described by all \(k\)-dimensional linear subspaces of \(\mathbb P^r\) which are \((k+1)\)-secant to \(X\). There are classical inequalities for \(\dim (S^k(X))\) and the study of some of the exceptional cases in which \(\dim (S^k(X))\) is less than expected. Here the main aim of the authors is to study the case in which \(\dim (S^k(X))\) is as expected, but its degree is very low. For \(k=1\) this is related to the degree of the linear projection of \(X\) from a general \((r-2\dim (X)-1)\)-dimensional linear subspace of \(\mathbb P^r\). They give a sharp lower bound for \(\deg (S^k(X))\), which extends the inequality \(\deg (X) \geq r-\dim (X) -1\). Moreover, they study the varieties for which the bound is obtained: all these varieties are rational. They classify all such extremal \(X\) when \(\dim (X) \leq 2\). They give a very detailed discussion (filling in several classical gaps) of classical results of Castelnuovo and Enriques. Very nice!