The number of reducible space curves over a finite field (Q1938580)

From the text: ``Most'' hypersurfaces in projective space are irreducible, and rather precise estimates are known for the probability that a random hypersurface over a finite field is reducible. This paper considers the parametrization of space curves by the appropriate Chow variety, and provides bounds on the probability that a random curve over a finite field is reducible. The Prime Number Theorem and a well-known result of Gauß\ describe the density of primes and of irreducible univariate polynomials over a finite field, respectively. ``Most'' numbers are composite, and ``most'' polynomials reducible. The latter changes drastically for two are more variables, where ``most'' polynomials are irreducible. Approximations to the number of reducible multivariate polynomials go back to Leonard Carlitz and Stephen Cohen in the 1960s. This question was recently taken up by \textit{A. Bodin} [Am. Math. Mon. 115, No. 7, 653--660 (2008; Zbl 1219.12003)] and \textit{X.-D. Hou} and \textit{G. L. Mullen} [Finite Fields Appl. 15, No. 3, 304--331 (2009; Zbl 1190.11063)]. The sharpest bounds are in the second author's [Finite Fields Appl. 14, No. 4, 944--978 (2008; Zbl 1192.12003)] for bivariate and von zur Gathen et al. [SIAM J. Discrete Math. 27, No. 2, 855--891 (2013; Zbl 1348.11094), extended abstract in: LATIN 2010 [Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 6034, 243--254 (2010; Zbl 1279.11113)] for multivariate polynomials. From a geometric perspective, these results say that almost all hypersurfaces are irreducible, and provide approximations to the number of reducible ones, over a finite field. Can we say something similar for other types of varieties? This paper gives an affirmative answer for curves in \(\mathbb P^r\) for arbitrary \(r\). A first question is how to parametrize the curves. Moduli spaces only include irreducible curves, and systems of defining equations do not work except for complete intersections. The natural parametrization is by the Chow variety \(\mathcal C_{d,r}\) of curves of degree \(d\) in \(\mathbb P^r\), for some fixed \(d\) and \(r\). The foundation of our work are the results by \textit{D. Eisenbud} and \textit{J. Harris} [Compos. Math. 83, No. 3, 291--310 (1992; Zbl 0780.14003)], who identified the irreducible components of \(\mathcal C_{d,r}\) of maximal dimension. It turns out that there is a threshold \(d_0(r) = 4r-8\) so that for \(d\geq d_0(r)\), most curves are irreducible, and for \(d < d_0(r)\), most are reducible. This assumes \(r\geq 3\); the planar case \(r=2\) is solved in the papers cited above, and single lines, with \(d=1\), are a natural exception. Over a finite field, we obtain the following bounds for curves chosen uniformly at random from \(\mathcal C_{d,r}\). For \(d\geq d_0(r)\), Theorem 16 provides upper and lower bounds on the probability that the curve is reducible over \(\mathbb F_q\). For \(d\geq 6r-12\), Corollary 19 does so for the probability that the curve is relatively irreducible over \(\mathbb F_q\), that is, irreducible over \(\mathbb F_q\) and absolutely reducible. For any \(d\) and \(r\) as above, both bounds tend to zero with growing \(q\). In fact, the rate of convergence in terms of \(q\) is the same in the upper and lower bounds, with (different) coefficients depending only on \(d\) and \(r\). Furthermore, we prove an ``average-case Weil bound'', estimating the absolute difference between \(q+1\) and the expected number of \(\mathbb F_q\)-points on a curve defined over \(\mathbb F_q\). All our estimates are explicit, without unspecified constants. The main technical tools are Bézout type estimates of the degrees of certain varieties, such as the incidence correspondence expressing that a curve in \(\mathcal C_{d,r}\) is contained in the variety defined by a system of equations. The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 introduces basic notations and facts, mainly concerning the Bézout inequality and Chow varieties. Section 3 determines the codimension of the set of reducible curves, for \(d\geq d_0(r)\). This is mainly based on [Eisenbud-Harris, loc. cit.]. Section 4 bounds, in several steps, the degree of the Chow variety. These estimates form the technical core of this paper. Section 5 draws the conclusions for the probability of having a reducible curve, and Section 6 applies our technology to relatively irreducible curves. The final Section 7 yields an average Weil estimate.