Algebraic Boundaries Among Typical Ranks for Real Binary Forms of Arbitrary Degree

We show that the algebraic boundaries of the regions of real binary forms with fixed typical rank are always unions of dual varieties to suitable coincident root loci.

Cayley Forms and Self-Dual Varieties

Generalized Chow forms were introduced by Cayley for the case of 3-space; their zero set on the Grassmannian G(1, 3) is either the set Z of lines touching a given space curve (the case of an ‘honest’ Cayley form), or the set of lines tangent to a surface. Cayley gave some equations for F to be a generalized Cayley form, which should hold modulo the ideal generated by F and by the quadratic equation Q for G(1, 3). Our main result is that F is a Cayley form if and only if Z = G(1, 3) ∩ {F = 0} is equal to its dual variety. We also show that the variety of generalized Cayley forms is defined by quadratic equations, since there is a unique representative F0 + QF1 of F, with F0, F1 harmonic, such that the harmonic projection of the Cayley equation is identically 0. We also give new equations for honest Cayley forms, but show, with some calculations, that the variety of honest Cayley forms does not seem to be defined by quadratic and cubic equations.

Castelnuovo bounds for higher-dimensional varieties

We give bounds for the Betti numbers of projective algebraic varieties in terms of their classes (degrees of dual varieties of successive hyperplane sections). We also give bounds for classes in terms of ramification volumes (mixed ramification degrees), sectional genus and, eventually, in terms of dimension, codimension and degree. For varieties whose degree is large with respect to codimension, we give sharp bounds for the above invariants and classify the varieties on the boundary, thus obtaining a generalization of Castelnuovo’s theory for curves to varieties of higher dimension.

GENERALIZED ZARISKI–VAN KAMPEN THEOREM AND ITS APPLICATION TO GRASSMANNIAN DUAL VARIETIES

We formulate and prove a generalization of Zariski–van Kampen theorem on the topological fundamental groups of smooth complex algebraic varieties. As an application, we prove a hyperplane section theorem of Lefschetz–Zariski–van Kampen type for the fundamental groups of the complements to the Grassmannian dual varieties.