On the Severi varieties of surfaces in P^3

The Severi variety V_{n,d} of a smooth projective surface S is defined as the subvariety of the linear system |O_S(n)|, which parametrizes curves with d nodes. We show that, for a general surface S of degree k in P^3 and for all n>k-1, d=0,...,dim(|O_S(n)|), there exists one component of V_{n,d} which is reduced, of the expected dimension dim(|O_S(n)|)-d. Components of the expected dimension are the easiest to handle, trying to settle an enumerative geometry for singular curves on surfaces. On the other hand, we also construct examples of reducible Severi varieties, on general surfaces of degree k>7 in P^3.Comment: AMSTeX, AMSppt style, 14 page

On the classification of defective threefolds

We classify all irreducible projective threefolds $X$ which are $k$-defective, i.e. some $k$-secant variety of $X$ has dimension less than the expected value. This results extends the classical Scorza's classification of the case $k=1$.Comment: AMSLaTeX, 30 page

Halphen conditions and postulation of nodes

We give sharp lower bounds for the postulation of the nodes of a general plane projection of a smooth connected curve C in P^r and we study the relationships with the geometry of the embedding. Strict connections with Castelnuovo's theory and Halphen's theory are shown.Comment: LaTeX, 26 page

Subvarieties of generic hypersurfaces in any variety

Let W be a projective variety of dimension n+1, L a free line bundle on W, X in $H^0(L^d)$ a hypersurface of degree d which is generic among those given by sums of monomials from $L$, and let $f : Y \to X$ be a generically finite map from a smooth m-fold Y. We suppose that f is r-filling, i.e. upon deforming X in $H^0(L^d)$, f deforms in a family such that the corresponding deformations of $Y^r$ dominate $W^r$. Under these hypotheses we give a lower bound for the dimension of a certain linear system on the Cartesian product $Y^r$ having certain vanishing order on a diagonal locus as well as on a double point locus. This yields as one application a lower bound on the dimension of the linear system |K_{Y} - (d - n + m)f^*L - f^*K_{W}| which generalizes results of Ein and Xu (and in weaker form, Voisin). As another perhaps more surprising application, we conclude a lower bound on the number of quadrics containing certain projective images of Y.Comment: We made some improvements in the introduction and definitions. In an effort to clarify the arguments we separated the 1-filling case from the r-filling case and we gave a more detailed proof of the key lemma. The article will appear in the Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. So

Terracini loci of curves

We study subsets S of curves X whose double structure does not impose independent conditions to a linear series L, but there are divisors D∈ | L| singular at all points of S. These subsets form the Terracini loci of X. We investigate Terracini loci, with a special look towards their non-emptiness, mainly in the case of canonical curves, and in the case of space curves