Higher order selfdual toric varieties

The notion of higher order dual varieties of a projective variety, introduced in \cite{P83}, is a natural generalization of the classical notion of projective duality. In this paper we present geometric and combinatorial characterizations of those equivariant projective toric embeddings that satisfy higher order selfduality. We also give several examples and general constructions. In particular, we highlight the relation with Cayley-Bacharach questions and with Cayley configurations.Comment: 21 page

Arithmetically Cohen--Macaulay curves in P^4 of degree 4 and genus 0

We show that the arithmetically Cohen--Macaulay (ACM) curves of degree 4 and genus 0 in ${\bold P}^4$ form an irreducible subset of the Hilbert scheme. Using this, we show that the singular locus of the corresponding component of the Hilbert scheme has dimension greater than 6. Moreover, we describe the structures of all ACM curves of Hilb$^{4m+1}({\bold P}^4)$.Comment: 17 pages, AMSTe

Inflectional loci of scrolls

Let $X\subset \mathbb P^N$ be a scroll over a smooth curve $C$ and let \L=\mathcal O_{\mathbb P^N}(1)|_X denote the hyperplane bundle. The special geometry of $X$ implies that some sheaves related to the principal part bundles of \L are locally free. The inflectional loci of $X$ can be expressed in terms of these sheaves, leading to explicit formulas for the cohomology classes of the loci. The formulas imply that the only uninflected scrolls are the balanced rational normal scrolls.Comment: 9 pages, improved version. Accepted in Mathematische Zeitschrif

Normal crossing properties of complex hypersurfaces via logarithmic residues

We introduce a dual logarithmic residue map for hypersurface singularities and use it to answer a question of Kyoji Saito. Our result extends a theorem of L\^e and Saito by an algebraic characterization of hypersurfaces that are normal crossing in codimension one. For free divisors, we relate the latter condition to other natural conditions involving the Jacobian ideal and the normalization. This leads to an algebraic characterization of normal crossing divisors. As a side result, describe all free divisors with Gorenstein singular locus.Comment: 17 page