arXiv subjects

Paolo Lella

Publications and source records attributed to Paolo Lella.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Components of the nested Hilbert scheme of few points

We study the existence and the schematic structure of elementary components of the nested Hilbert scheme on a smooth quasi-projective variety. Precisely, we find a new lower bound for the existence of non-smoothable nestings of fat points on a smooth $n$-fold, for $n\geqslant 4$. Moreover, we implement a systematic method to build generically non-reduced elementary components. We also investigate the problem of irreducibility of the Hilbert scheme of points on a singular hypersurface of $\mathbb A^3$. Explicitly, we show that the Hilbert scheme of points on a hypersurface of $\mathbb{A}^3$ having a singularity of multiplicity at least 5 admits elementary components.

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arXiv2025

Free resolutions and marked families

Let $\mathbb{K}$ be a field and $A$ a Noetherian $\mathbb{K}$-algebra. In a paper of 2020, M. Albert, C. Bertone, M. Roggero and W. M. Seiler proved that, given a quasi-stable module $U \subset R^m$ with $R=\mathbb{K}[x_0,\dots,x_n]$, any submodule $M\subseteq (R\otimes A)^m$ generated by a marked basis over $U$ admits a special free resolution described in terms of marked bases as well, called the {\em $U$-resolution of $M$}. In this paper, we first investigate the minimality of the $U$-resolution and its structure. When $M$ is an ideal and $A=\mathbb{K}$, we show that $M$ is componentwise linear if and only if its $U$-resolution is minimal, up to a linear change of variables. Then, adopting a functorial approach to the construction of the $U$-resolution, we prove that certain functors naturally associated with the resolution are isomorphic. These isomorphisms arise from the fact that the marked basis of the $i$-th syzygy module in the $U$-resolution can be expressed in terms of the coefficients of the marked basis of $M$. Moreover, when $M$ is an ideal of depth at least 2, this correspondence can be reversed: in this case, the marked basis of $M$ itself can be written in terms of the coefficients of the marked basis of its first syzygy module.

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arXiv2025

New components of Hilbert schemes of points and 2-step ideals

This paper presents new examples of elementary and non-elementary irreducible components of the Hilbert scheme of points and its nested variants. The results are achieved via a careful analysis of the deformations of a class of finite colength ideals that are introduced in this paper and referred to as 2-step ideals. The most notable reducibility results pertain to the 4-nested Hilbert scheme of points on a smooth surface, the reducibility of $\text{Hilb}^{3,7}\mathbb{A}^4$, and a method to detect a large number of generically reduced elementary components. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, we provide an explicit description of 215 new generically reduced elementary components in dimensions 4, 5 and 6.

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arXiv2024

The geometry of double nested Hilbert schemes of points on curves

Let $C$ be a smooth curve. In this paper we investigate the geometric properties of the double nested Hilbert scheme of points on $C$, a moduli space introduced by the third author in the context of BPS invariants of local curves and sheaf counting on Calabi-Yau 3-folds. We prove this moduli space is connected, reduced and of pure dimension; we list its components via an explicit combinatorial characterisation and we show they can be resolved, when singular, by products of symmetric products of $C$. We achieve this via a purely algebraic analysis of the factorisation properties of the monoid of reverse plane partitions. We discuss the (virtual) fundamental class of the moduli space, we describe the local equations cutting it inside a smooth ambient space, and finally we provide a closed formula for its motivic class in the Grothendieck ring of varieties.

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arXiv2024

Unexpected but recurrent phenomena for Quot and Hilbert schemes of points

We investigate some aspects of the geometry of two classical generalisations of the Hilbert schemes of points. Precisely, we show that parity conjecture for $\text{Quot}_r^d\mathbb{A}^3$ already fails for $d=8$ and $r=2$ and that lots of the elementary components of the nested Hilbert schemes of points on smooth quasi-projective varieties of dimension at least 4 are generically non-reduced. We also deduce that nested Hilbert schemes of points on smooth surfaces have generically non-reduced components. Finally, we give an infinite family of elementary components of the classical Hilbert schemes of points.

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arXiv2024

A counterexample to the parity conjecture

Let $[Z]\in\text{Hilb}^d \mathbb A^3$ be a zero-dimensional subscheme of the affine three-dimensional complex space of length $d>0$. Okounkov and Pandharipande have conjectured that the dimension of the tangent space of $\text{Hilb}^d \mathbb A^3$ at $[Z]$ and $d$ have the same parity. The conjecture was proven by Maulik, Nekrasov, Okounkov and Pandharipande for points $[Z]$ defined by monomial ideals and very recently by Ramkumar and Sammartano for homogeneous ideals. In this paper we exhibit a family of zero-dimensional schemes in $\text{Hilb}^{12} \mathbb A^3$, which disproves the conjecture in the general non-homogeneous case.

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arXiv2020

The Gröbner fan of the Hilbert scheme

We give a notion of "combinatorial proximity" among strongly stable ideals in a given polynomial ring with a fixed Hilbert polynomial. We show that this notion guarantees "geometric proximity" of the corresponding points in the Hilbert scheme. We define a graph whose vertices correspond to strongly stable ideals and whose edges correspond to pairs of adjacent ideals. Every term order induces an orientation of the edges of the graph. This directed graph describes the behavior of the points of the Hilbert scheme under Gröbner degenerations with respect to the given term order. Then, we introduce a polyhedral fan that we call Gröbner fan of the Hilbert scheme. Each cone of maximal dimension corresponds to a different directed graph induced by a term order. This fan encodes several properties of the Hilbert scheme. We use these tools to present a new proof of the connectedness of the Hilbert scheme. Finally, we improve the technique introduced in the paper "Double-generic initial ideal and Hilbert scheme" by Bertone, Cioffi and Roggero to give a lower bound on the number of irreducible components of the Hilbert scheme.

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arXiv2018

Strongly stable ideals and Hilbert polynomials

The \texttt{StronglyStableIdeals} package for \textit{Macaulay2} provides a method to compute all saturated strongly stable ideals in a given polynomial ring with a fixed Hilbert polynomial. A description of the main method and auxiliary tools is given.

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arXiv2018

The maximum genus problem for locally Cohen-Macaulay space curves

Let $P_{\text{MAX}}(d,s)$ denote the maximum arithmetic genus of a locally Cohen-Macaulay curve of degree $d$ in $\mathbb{P}^3$ that is not contained in a surface of degree $<s$. A bound $P(d, s)$ for $P_{\text{MAX}}(d,s)$ has been proven by the first author in characteristic zero and then generalized in any characteristic by the third author. In this paper, we construct a large family $\mathcal{C}$ of primitive multiple lines and we conjecture that the generic element of $\mathcal{C}$ has good cohomological properties. With the aid of \emph{Macaulay2} we checked the validity of the conjecture for $s \leq 100$. From the conjecture it would follow that $P(d,s)= P_{\text{MAX}}(d,s)$ for $d=s$ and for every $d \geq 2s-1$.

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arXiv2018

A construction of equivariant bundles on the space of symmetric forms

We construct stable vector bundles on the space of symmetric forms of degree d in n+1 variables which are equivariant for the action of SL_{n+1}(C), and admit an equivariant free resolution of length 2. For n=1, we obtain new examples of stable vector bundles of rank d-1 on P^d, which are moreover equivariant for SL_2(C). The presentation matrix of these bundles attains Westwick's upper bound for the dimension of vector spaces of matrices of constant rank and fixed size.

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arXiv2017

Truncated modules and linear presentations of vector bundles

We give a new method to construct linear spaces of matrices of constant rank, based on truncated graded cohomology modules of certain vector bundles as well as on the existence of graded Artinian modules with pure resolutions. Our method allows one to produce several new examples, and provides an alternative point of view on the existing ones.

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arXiv2016

Towards Fulton's conjecture

We present an alternate proof, much quicker and more straightforward than the original one, of a celebrated Fulton's conjecture on the ample cone of the moduli space of stable rational curves with n marked points in the case n=7.

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arXiv2016

On the functoriality of marked families

The application of methods of computational algebra has recently introduced new tools for the study of Hilbert schemes. The key idea is to define flat families of ideals endowed with a scheme structure whose defining equations can be determined by algorithmic procedures. For this reason, several authors developed new methods, based on the combinatorial properties of Borel-fixed ideals, that allow to associate to each ideal $J$ of this type a scheme $\mathbf{Mf}_{J}$, called $J$-marked scheme. In this paper we provide a solid functorial foundation to marked schemes and show that the algorithmic procedures introduced in previous papers do not depend on the ring of coefficients. We prove that for all strongly stable ideals $J$, the marked schemes $\mathbf{Mf}_{J}$ can be embedded in a Hilbert scheme as locally closed subschemes, and that they are open under suitable conditions on $J$. Finally, we generalize Lederer's result about Gröbner strata of zero-dimensional ideals, proving that Gröbner strata of any ideals are locally closed subschemes of Hilbert schemes.

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arXiv2015

The maximum likelihood degree of Fermat hypersurfaces

We study the critical points of the likelihood function over the Fermat hypersurface. This problem is related to one of the main problems in statistical optimization: maximum likelihood estimation. The number of critical points over a projective variety is a topological invariant of the variety and is called maximum likelihood degree. We provide closed formulas for the maximum likelihood degree of any Fermat curve in the projective plane and of Fermat hypersurfaces of degree 2 in any projective space. Algorithmic methods to compute the ML degree of a generic Fermat hypersurface are developed throughout the paper. Such algorithms heavily exploit the symmetries of the varieties we are considering. A computational comparison of the different methods and a list of the maximum likelihood degrees of several Fermat hypersurfaces are available in the last section.

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arXiv2015

A combinatorial description of finite O-sequences and aCM genera

The goal of this paper is to explicitly detect all the arithmetic genera of arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay projective curves with a given degree $d$. It is well-known that the arithmetic genus $g$ of a curve $C$ can be easily deduced from the $h$-vector of the curve; in the case where $C$ is arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay of degree $d$, $g$ must belong to the range of integers $\big\{0,\ldots,\binom{d-1}{2}\big\}$. We develop an algorithmic procedure that allows one to avoid constructing most of the possible $h$-vectors of $C$. The essential tools are a combinatorial description of the finite O-sequences of multiplicity $d$, and a sort of continuity result regarding the generation of the genera. The efficiency of our method is supported by computational evidence. As a consequence, we single out the minimal possible Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of a curve with Cohen-Macaulay postulation and given degree and genus.

math.AC↗

arXiv2015

Minimal Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity for a given Hilbert polynomial

Let $K$ be an algebraically closed field of null characteristic and $p(z)$ a Hilbert polynomial. We look for the minimal Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity $m_{p(z)}$ of closed subschemes of projective spaces over $K$ with Hilbert polynomial $p(z)$. Experimental evidences led us to consider the idea that $m_{p(z)}$ could be achieved by schemes having a suitable minimal Hilbert function. We give a constructive proof of this fact. Moreover, we are able to compute the minimal Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity $m_p(z)^{\varrho}$ of schemes with Hilbert polynomial $p(z)$ and given regularity $\varrho$ of the Hilbert function, and also the minimal Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity $m_u$ of schemes with Hilbert function $u$. These results find applications in the study of Hilbert schemes. They are obtained by means of minimal Hilbert functions and of two new constructive methods which are based on the notion of growth-height-lexicographic Borel set and called ideal graft and extended lifting.

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arXiv2014

Extensors and the Hilbert scheme

The Hilbert scheme $\mathbf{Hilb}_{p(t)}^{n}$ parametrizes closed subschemes and families of closed subschemes in the projective space $\mathbb{P}^n$ with a fixed Hilbert polynomial $p(t)$. It is classically realized as a closed subscheme of a Grassmannian or a product of Grassmannians. In this paper we consider schemes over a field $k$ of characteristic zero and we present a new proof of the existence of the Hilbert scheme as a subscheme of the Grassmannian $\mathbf{Gr}_{p(r)}^{N(r)}$, where $N(r)= h^0 (\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^n}(r))$. Moreover, we exhibit explicit equations defining it in the Plücker coordinates of the Plücker embedding of $\mathbf{Gr}_{p(r)}^{N(r)}$. Our proof of existence does not need some of the classical tools used in previous proofs, as flattening stratifications and Gotzmann's Persistence Theorem. The degree of our equations is $\text{deg} p(t)+2$, lower than the degree of the equations given by Iarrobino and Kleiman in 1999 and also lower (except for the case of hypersurfaces) than the degree of those proved by Haiman and Sturmfels in 2004 after Bayer's conjecture in 1982. The novelty of our approach mainly relies on the deeper attention to the intrinsic symmetries of the Hilbert scheme and on some results about Grassmannian based on the notion of extensors.

math.AG↗

arXiv2014

Smooth curves specialize to extremal curves

Let $H_{d,g}$ denote the Hilbert scheme of locally Cohen-Macaulay curves of degree $d$ and genus $g$ in projective three space. We show that, given a smooth irreducible curve $C$ of degree $d$ and genus $g$, there is a rational curve $\{[C_t]: t \in \mathbb{A}^1\}$ in $H_{d,g}$ such that $C_t$ for $t \neq 0$ is projectively equivalent to $C$, while the special fibre $C_0$ is an extremal curve. It follows that smooth curves lie in a unique connected component of $H_{d,g}$. We also determine necessary and sufficient conditions for a locally Cohen-Macaulay curve to admit such a specialization to an extremal curve.

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