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On the Bicanonical Sets of a Certain Class of Curves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Ronald Frith
Affiliation:
Trinity College

Extract

W. G. Welchman in his work on fundamental scrolls* obtains as directrix curves to such scrolls a canonical curve pK2p−2 in [p − 1] and a non-special curve pCn in [np]. These latter curves may not, however, be general curves regarded projectively, and it is an interesting question to find out the geometrical interpretation of their particularity. The curves C and K are, of course, in birational correspondence, and the prime sections of C correspond to the sections of K by quadrics through a contact set*, i.e. a set of points such that there is a quadric which touches K at every point of the set. For k small enough it is clear that every set of k points is a contact set and in this case the curves C are quite general. For larger k the fact that the set is a contact set simply means that, on C, the points of the bicanonical sets residual to a prime section lie themselves in primes (when k is sufficiently small the number of points in this residual set is such that they always lie in a prime).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1935

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References

* Welchman, W. G., “Special scrolls and involutions on canonical curves”, Proc. London Math. Soc. (in the press).Google Scholar

* W. G. Welchman, loc. cit.

* There are in this case no points corresponding to the points (1), …, (5) above.

* For p > 3 this is more than we should expect to meet in a point.