The reflexivity of a Segre product of projective varieties (Q943354)

The conormal variety \(CX\) of a projective variety \(X\subset{\mathbb P}^N\) is the closure of the set of pairs \((P,H)\) where \(P\) is a non-singular point of \(X\) and \(H\in\check{\mathbb P}{}^N\) is a hyperplane tangent to \(X\) at \(P\). The image of the projection \(CX\rightarrow\check{\mathbb P}{}^N\) is the dual variety \(X^*\). A variety \(X\) is called reflexive if its conormal variety coincides with the conormal variety \(CX^*\) of its dual variety. Thanks to generic smoothness, every projective variety over an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(0\) is reflexive. This is no longer true over an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(p>0\). The paper under review investigates the reflexivity of the Segre embedding of the product \({\mathbb P}^m\times Y\) in the latter situation, and gives necessary and sufficient conditions for the reflexivity of these Segre products in terms of the reflexivity of \(Y\), the dimension of the factors, the characteristic of the field, and the rank of the Hessian matrix of \(Y\) at a general point. This result extends previous work by the authors [\textit{H.~Kaji}, Geom. Dedicata 99, 221--229 (2003; Zbl 1027.14025); \textit{S.~Fukasawa}, Compos. Math. 142, No. 5, 1305--1307 (2006; Zbl 1107.14044)]. As an application of this theorem, the authors present new examples of non-reflexive varieties with birational Gauss map.