On the cohomology of Brill-Noether loci over quot schemes (Q934103)

Let \(C\) be a smooth irreducible projective curve over an algebraically closed field \(k\) of characteristic zero. The Brill-Noether loci in the moduli spaces of stable vector bundles on \(C\) have been extensively studied in recent years. The object of the present paper is to study analogous loci in the space \(\text{Mor}_d(C,G(m,n))\) of morphisms of degree \(d\) from \(C\) to the Grassmannian of \(m\)-planes in \(k^n\) and in the corresponding Quot scheme of quotients of rank \(m\) and degree \(d\) of the trivial bundle \({\mathcal O}^n\). After making some basic definitions and remarks, the author restricts to the case \(m=2\), \(n=4\) and writes \(R^0_{C,d}\) for \(\text{Mor}_d(C,G(2,4))\) and \(R_{C,d}\) for the corresponding Quot scheme. Denote by \({\mathcal Q}\) the universal quotient bundle on \(G(2,4)\) and, for any vector bundle \(E\) of rank \(2\) and degree \(d\) on \(C\), let \(s(E)\) be the Segre invariant of \(E\), which is defined by the property that \({d+s(E)\over2}\) is the minimal degree of a quotient line bundle \(L\) of \(E\). (This is also sometimes called the index of stability of \(E\), since \(E\) is stable (semistable) if and only if \(s>0\) (\(s\geq0\)).) For any integer \(s\), define \(R^0_{C,d,s}:=\{f\in R^0_{C,d}|s(f^*{\mathcal Q})=s\}\); these loci are locally closed and form a stratification of \(R^0_{C,d}\). For any fixed line bundle \(L\) of degree \({d+s\over2}\), define further \(R^0_{C,d,s}(L):=\{f\in R^0_{C,d}|h^0(f^*{\mathcal Q}^\vee\otimes L)\geq1\}\), so that \(R^0_{C,d,s}\) is the union of the \(R^0_{C,d,s}(L)\) for all \(L\) of this degree. Let \(R_{C,d,s}\) and \(R_{C,d,s}(L)\) denote the closures of these loci in \(R_{C,d}\). The author refers to all of these loci as Brill-Noether loci, and indeed those with fixed \(L\) are examples of twisted Brill-Noether loci in the usual terminology. After confirming that these loci are non-empty under suitable conditions on \(d\) and \(s\), the author shows that, for sufficiently large \(d\) depending on \(s\leq g\), \(R_{C,d,s}(L)\) can be defined as the degeneracy locus where a certain homomorphism of vector bundles on \(R_{C,d}\) fails to be surjective and that it is irreducible and has the ``expected'' codimension \(2g-s-1\). She then goes on to show that, if \(R_{C,d,s}(L)\) is either empty or is generically reduced with this codimension, then the cohomology class of \(R_{C,d,s}(L)\) in \(R_{C,d}\) is equal to \(-c_{2g-s-1}(\pi_{1*}({\mathcal K}^\vee\otimes\pi_2^*L))\), where \({\mathcal K}\) is the universal kernel bundle on \(R_{C,d}\times C\) and \(\pi_1\), \(\pi_2\) are the projections of \(R_{C,d}\times C\) onto its factors; this is proved by a standard argument using the Porteous formula. In the final part of the paper, a recursive formula for this class is obtained in terms of the Künneth components of the Chern classes of \({\mathcal K}\), with explicit formulae being given when \(g=1\).