Related papers: On the osculatory behaviour of higher dimensional …

We consider the varieties $O_{k,n.d}$ of the k-osculating spaces to the Veronese varieties, the $d-$uple embeddings of $\PP n$; we study the dimension of their higher secant varieties. Via inverse systems (apolarity) and the study of…

Here we investigate the birational geometry of projective varieties of arbitrary dimension having defective higher secant varieties. We apply the classical tool of tangential projections and we determine natural conditions for uniruledness,…

We investigate when the tangent bundle of a projective manifold has a non-trivial first order (or positive-dimensional) deformation. This leads to a new conjectural characterization of the complex projective space.

We study the projective behavior, mainly with respect to osculating spaces and secant varieties, of Lagrangian Grassmannians and Spinor varieties. We prove that these varieties have osculating dimension smaller than expected. Furthermore,…

Here we present a partial generalization to higher order osculating spaces of the classical Lemma of Terracini on ordinary tangent spaces. As an application, we investigate the secant varieties to the osculating varieties to the Veronese…

We study deformations of complex projective varieties that are homotopically or homologically trivial. We formulate several conjectures and give some examples and partial answers.

In this paper, using the method of moving frames, we generalise some of Terracini's results on varieties with tangent defect. In particular, we characterise varieties with higher order osculating defect in terms of Jacobians of higher…

In this paper we prove, using a refinement of Terracini's Lemma, a sharp lower bound for the degree of (higher) secant varieties to a given projective variety, which extends the well known lower bound for the degree of a variety in terms of…

We study complex analytic projective connections on surfaces in projective n-spaces in terms of the "second" neighborhood of the surface in the ambient space, and in terms of the osculating behavior of the integral curves. We also…

We discuss the problem of optimizing the distance function from a given point, subject to polynomial constraints. A key algebraic invariant that governs its complexity is the Euclidean distance degree, which pertains to first-order…

We study an isomorphism between the group of rigid body displacements and the group of dual quaternions modulo the dual number multiplicative group from the viewpoint of differential geometry in a projective space over the dual numbers.…

Boundary points on the moduli space of pointed curves corresponding to collisions of marked points have modular interpretations as degenerate curves. In this paper, we study degenerations of orbifold projective curves corresponding to…

We generalize the classical Terracini's Lemma to higher order osculating spaces to secant varieties. As an application, we address with the so-called Horace method the case of the $d$-Veronese embedding of the projective 3-space.

Let us say that a curve $C\subset\mathbb P^3$ is osculating self-dual if it is projectively equivalent to the curve in the dual space $(\mathbb P^3)^*$ whose points are osculating planes to~$C$. Similarly, we say that a $k$-dimensional…

We study orientational order, subject to thermal fluctuations, on a fixed curved surface. We derive, in particular, the average density of zeros of Gaussian distributed vector fields on a closed Riemannian manifold. Results are compared…

This paper is a continuation of the papers [2,3,4,5,6]. In this paper the osculating spaces of arbitrary order of a manifold embedded in Euclidean space are considered. A better estimation of their dimensions as well as the description of…

We study families of linear spaces in projective space whose union is a proper subvariety X of the expected dimension. We establish relations between configurations of focal points and existence or non-existence of a fixed tangent space to…

In the first part of the thesis, we study a classical invariant of projective varieties, the secant defectivity. The second part is devoted to modern algebraic geometry, we study the birational geometry of blow-ups of Grassmannians at…

Osculating spaces of decomposable scrolls (of any genus and not necessarily normal)are studied and their inflectional loci are related to those of their generating curves by using systematically an idea introduced by Piene and Sacchiero in…

We define higher order fundamental forms and osculating spaces of projective algebraic varieties, using sheaves of principal parts. We show that the $m$th fundamental form can be viewed as the differential of the $(m-1)$th Gauss map, and…