The Hilbert schemes of locally Cohen-Macaulay curves in P^3 may after all be connected

DOI10.1007/S13348-012-0062-3MaRDI QIDQ379974zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 11 November 2013

Published in Collectanea Mathematica (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2611

Gröbner basis Hilbert scheme initial ideal locally Cohen-Macaulay curve weight vector

Gröbner bases; other bases for ideals and modules (e.g., Janet and border bases) (13P10) Parametrization (Chow and Hilbert schemes) (14C05) Formal methods and deformations in algebraic geometry (14D15) Families, moduli of curves (algebraic) (14H10) Plane and space curves (14H50) Varieties defined by ring conditions (factorial, Cohen-Macaulay, seminormal) (14M05)

Abstract: Progress on the problem whether the Hilbert schemes of locally Cohen-Macaulay curves in projective 3 space are connected has been hampered by the lack of an answer to a question that was raised by Robin Hartshorne in his paper "On the connectedness of the Hilbert scheme of curves in projective 3 space" Comm. Algebra 28 (2000) and more recently in the open problems list of the 2010 AIM workshop Components of Hilbert Schemes available at http://aimpl.org/hilbertschemes: does there exist a flat irreducible family of curves whose general member is a union of d disjoint lines on a smooth quadric surface and whose special member is a locally Cohen-Macaulay curve in a double plane? In this paper we give a positive answer to this question: for every d, we construct a family with the required properties, whose special fiber is an extremal curve in the sense of Martin-Deschamps and Perrin. From this we conclude that every effective divisor in a smooth quadric surface is in the connected component of its Hilbert scheme that contains extremal curves.

Review text

While connectedness of the full Hilbert scheme was proved long ago in Hartshorne's thesis [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 29, 5--48 (1966; Zbl 0171.41502)], connectedness of the Hilbert scheme \(H_{d,g}\) of locally Cohen-Macaulay curves of degree \(d\) and arithmetic genus \(g\) in \(\mathbb P^3\) remains an open problem. The extremal curves (those whose higher ideal sheaf cohomology has maximum dimensions) form an irreducible component \(E \subset H_{d,g}\) [\textit{M. Martin-Deschamps} and \textit{D. Perrin}, Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 29, No. 6, 757--785 (1996; Zbl 0892.14005)], so a natural strategy consists of trying to flatly deform given curves to an extremal curve. This strategy works for \(g \geq {{d-1}\choose{2}}-1\) [\textit{S. Nollet}, Commun. Algebra 28, No. 12, 5745--5747 (2000; Zbl 0991.14002) and \textit{I. Sabadini}, Matematiche 55, No. 2, 517--531 (2000, Zbl 1165.14311)] and \(d=3\) [\textit{S. Nollet}, Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 30, No. 3, 367--384 (1997; Zbl 0892.14004)], but fails for \(d=4\), though \(H_{4,g}\) turns out to be connected by other means [\textit{S. Nollet} and \textit{E. Schlesinger}, Compos. Math. 139, No. 2, 169--196 (2003; Zbl 1053.14035)]. Moreover, Koszul curves deform to extremal curves [\textit{D. Perrin}, Collect. Math. 52, No. 3, 295-319 (2001; Zbl 1074.14500)], as do smooth rational curves, ACM curves, smooth curves with \(d \geq g+3\) [\textit{R. Hartshorne}, Commun. Algebra 28, No. 12, 6059--6077 (2000; Zbl 0994.14002)]. In this last reference Hartshorne set out a challenge to prove or disprove it for families of \(d \geq 4\) skew lines on a smooth quadric surface. The paper under review rises to this challenge, exhibiting such a deformation. Their technique is interesting, consisting of two observations. Let \(C\) be a curve consisting of \(d\) disjoint general rulings on a smooth quadric surface \(Q\). Deforming to the initial ideal of \(C\) with respect to the standard weight vector results in a curve with embedded points, but the authors show that the initial ideal of \(C\) with respect to the non-standard weight vector \(\omega = (d,2,1,1)\) takes the form \[ (x^2,xy,y^{d-1},xG-y^{d-1}F) \] where \(x,y\) are linear and \(F,G\) are forms of respective degrees \({{d-2}\choose{2}}-g, {{d-1}\choose{2}}-g\). If the lines of \(C\) are sufficiently general, this defines a curve which remarkably has no embedded points; in fact it is an extremal curve of the same degree and genus as \(C\), thereby connecting this family to the extremal component.

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