Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideals and coordinate sections of determinantal varieties

Motivated by questions in algebra and combinatorics we study two ideals associated to a simple graph G: --> the Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideal defining the d-dimensional orthogonal representations of the graph complementary to G and --> the determinantal ideal of the (d+1)-minors of a generic symmetric with 0s in positions prescribed by the graph G. In characteristic 0 these two ideals turns out to be closely related and algebraic properties such as being radical, prime or a complete intersection transfer from the Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideal to the determinantal ideal. For Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideals we link these properties to combinatorial properties of G and show that they always hold for d large enough. For specific classes of graph, such a forests, we can give a complete picture and classify the radical, prime and complete intersection Lovasz-Saks-Schrijver ideals.