Determinantal ideals of secant varieties

Using Hilbert schemes of points, we establish a number of results for a smooth projective variety $X$ in a sufficiently ample embedding. If $X$ is a curve or a surface, we show that the ideals of higher secant varieties are determinantally presented, and we prove the same for the first secant variety if $X$ has arbitrary dimension. This completely settles a conjecture of Eisenbud-Koh-Stillman for curves and partially resolves a conjecture of Sidman-Smith in higher dimensions. If $X$ is a curve or a surface we also prove that the corresponding embedding of the Hilbert scheme of points $X^{[d]}$ into the Grassmannian is projectively normal. Finally, if $X$ is an arbitrary projective scheme in a sufficiently ample embedding, then we demonstrate that its homogeneous ideal is generated by quadrics of rank three, confirming a conjecture of Han-Lee-Moon-Park. Along the way, we check that the Hilbert scheme of three points on a smooth variety is the blow-up of the symmetric product along the big diagonal.