FUNDAMENTALNAYA I PRIKLADNAYA MATEMATIKA

(FUNDAMENTAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS)

2006, VOLUME 12, NUMBER 2, PAGES 71-87

Trisecant lemma for nonequidimensional varieties

J. Y. Kaminski
A. Kanel-Belov
M. Teicher

Abstract

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Let X be an irreducible projective variety over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. For r ³ 3, if every (r - 2)-plane \overline {x1,..., xr−1}, where the xi are generic points, also meets X in a point xr different from x1,..., xr-1, then X is contained in a linear subspace L such that codimL X ≤ r − 2. In this paper, our purpose is to present another derivation of this result for r = 3 and then to introduce a generalization to nonequidimensional varieties. For the sake of clarity, we shall reformulate our problem as follows. Let Z be an equidimensional variety (maybe singular and/or reducible) of dimension n, other than a linear space, embedded into Pr, where r ³ n + 1. The variety of trisecant lines of Z, say V1,3(Z), has dimension strictly less than 2n, unless Z is included in an (n + 1)-dimensional linear space and has degree at least 3, in which case dim V1,3(Z) = 2n. This also implies that if dim V1,3(Z) = 2n, then Z can be embedded in Pn+1. Then we inquire the more general case, where Z is not required to be equidimensional. In that case, let Z be a possibly singular variety of dimension n, which may be neither irreducible nor equidimensional, embedded into Pr, where r ³ n + 1, and let Y be a proper subvariety of dimension k ³ 1. Consider now S being a component of maximal dimension of the closure of {l Î G(1,r) | $ p Î Y, q1,q2 Î Z\Y, q1,q2,p Î l}. We show that S has dimension strictly less than n + k, unless the union of lines in S has dimension n + 1, in which case dim S = n + k. In the latter case, if the dimension of the space is strictly greater than n + 1, then the union of lines in S cannot cover the whole space. This is the main result of our paper. We also introduce some examples showing that our bound is strict.

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