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# Rational Families of Vector Bundles on Curves, I

## 1. Introduction and background

Let $`C`$ be a genus $`g2`$ smooth projective curve over $``$. Let $`\xi `$ be a degree $`1`$ line bundle on $`C`$ and let $`M`$ be the moduli space of isomorphism classes of stable, rank $`2`$ vector bundles $``$ on C, with determinant $`\text{det}()=^2()\xi `$. Then $`M`$ is a smooth, projective, irreducible variety of dimension $`(3g3)`$. It is known that $`\text{Pic}(M)`$ \[DrezNar\] and let $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ be the ample generator. In fact, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is very ample \[BrVe\]. By a rational curve of degree $`k`$ on $`M`$ we will always mean a non-constant morphism $`f:^1M`$, such that the line bundle $`f^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$ on $`^1`$ has degree $`k`$. Our main goal in this paper is to study the Hilbert scheme $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ of morphisms $`f:^1M`$ of degree $`k`$.

It is known that the canonical bundle $`K_M`$ is $`\mathrm{\Theta }^2`$ \[Ramanan\]; hence, $`M`$ is a Fano variety. Moreover, $`M`$ is a rational variety. There are some explicit descriptions of $`M`$, that we will not use in what follows, but they are interesting to mention. If $`g=2`$ then $`M`$ is isomorphic to a complete intersection of two quadrics in $`^5`$ \[News67\]; more generally, for any $`g2`$, if $`C`$ is a hyperelliptic curve of genus $`g`$, then $`M`$ is isomorphic to the Grassmanian of $`(g2)`$-planes contained in a complete intersection of two quadrics in $`^{2g+1}`$ \[DesRam\].

Our motivation comes from the question of measuring the extent to which the space of rational curves on a rationally connected variety is itself rationally connected. Recall that a projective variety $`X`$ is *rationally connected*, if there is a dense open $`X^0X`$, such that for any two points $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$ in $`X^0`$, there is a rational curve $`^1X`$ through $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$. For curves and surfaces, this notion is equivalent to the notion of rationality and unirationality; in higher dimensions, rational connectivity is weaker. If $`X`$ is a smooth projective variety, its *maximal rationally connected fibration (MRC)* is a rational map $`\psi :XZ`$ such that:

* the general fiber is rationally connected
* for very general $`zZ`$, a rational curve in $`X`$ intersecting the fiber $`\psi ^1(z)`$ is contained in $`\psi ^1(z)`$

The MRC fibration of a smooth projective variety is known to exist \[Kollár\]. The pair $`(Z,\psi )`$ is unique up to a birational transformation. The MRC fibration of a singular projective variety is defined to be the MRC fibration of some desingularization.

The question about the inductive behavior of rational connectivity for some hypersurfaces of low degree has been the object of a series of papers by Harris, Roth and Starr in \[HRS2\], \[HRS1\], \[HRS3\] \[HS\]. Generally speaking, if $`X`$ is a smooth, projective, rationally connected variety, we ask what are the irreducible components of the space $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,X)`$, what are their dimensions and their MRC fibrations. The answer for the case when $`X`$ is a projective space or a smooth quadric of dimension at least three is given by Kim and Pandharipande in \[KP\].

In this paper (and in its follow-up \[C2\]), we answer these questions for the case of moduli spaces $`M`$ of vector bundles. The problem of studying the irreducible components of the space $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, was considered before in \[Kilaru\], using a different method, for the case of $`k=1`$ and $`k=2`$. Our methods are based on the classical ideas of exhibiting a rank $`2`$ vector bundle as the middle term of an extension of line bundles or an extension of a skyscraper sheaf by a rank $`2`$ vector bundle. One of the main results in this paper is the following:

###### Theorem 1.1.

For any integer $`k1`$, there is a *nice* irreducible component $``$ of the space $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$:

* it has the expected dimension $`(2k+3g3)`$ and the general point is unobstructed
* the MRC fibration of $``$ is given by a rational map $`J(C)`$

To prove the theorem for $`k`$ odd, we fix an integer $`e0`$ and for every degree $`e`$ line bundle $``$ on $`C`$, we consider exact sequences

$$0^1\xi 0$$
(1.1)
If $`e0`$ is an integer, for every degree $`e`$ line bundle $``$ on $`C`$, denote with $`V_{}`$ the vector space $`\text{Ext}^1(^1\xi ,)`$, parameterizing extensions of type (1.1). There is a rational map $`(V_{})M`$ which associates to an extension (1.1) the isomorphism class of the bundle $``$. We prove that it is defined outside a locus of codimension at least $`2`$. By considering lines in the projective spaces $`(V_{})`$, we obtain rational curves of degree $`(2e+1)`$ on $`M`$. If we do this for all line bundles $``$ of degree $`e`$, the rational curves obtained in this way fill up a whole irreducible component of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, for $`k=(2e+1)`$.

To prove the theorem for $`k`$ even, we consider exact sequences

$$0^{}O_D0$$
(1.2)
where $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$ ($`e0`$) and $``$ is a rank $`2`$ stable vector bundle, with $`\text{det}()\xi (D)`$. In a similar way as in the odd case, if we denote with $`V_{D,}`$ the vector space $`\text{Ext}^1(O_D,)`$, parameterizing extensions of type (1.2), we prove that there is a rational map $`(V_{D,})M`$, that it is defined outside a locus of codimension at least $`2`$. By considering lines in the projective spaces $`(V_{D,})`$, we obtain rational curves of degree $`2e`$ on $`M`$. If we do this for all $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$ and all rank $`2`$ stable bundles $``$ with $`\text{det}()\xi (D)`$, the rational curves obtained in this way fill up a whole irreducible component of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, for $`k=2e`$.

We ask whether the rational curves $`f:^1M`$ in the nice component are free curves, that is if $`f^{}T_M`$ is a non-negative vector bundle. The following theorem states precisely when this is the case.

###### Theorem 1.2.

For any integer $`k1`$, let $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ be the nice component. We distinguish the following cases:

* If $`k`$ is odd, a general $`f`$ is a free curve if and only if $`k(g1)`$
* If $`k`$ is even, a general $`f`$ is a free curve for any $`k`$

Moreover, if $`k`$ is sufficiently large, the general $`f`$ is a very free curve.

If we generalize the idea from the case when $`k`$ is odd, we obtain that, at least in certain cases, there is at least another irreducible component. In \[C2\], we will give a different method, that helps to find and describe all the irreducible components of the space $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$.

###### Theorem 1.3.

If $`g`$ is even, for integers $`k1`$ that are divisible by $`(g1)`$, there is an *almost nice* irreducible component $`^{}`$ (different from $``$) of the space $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$:

* it has the expected dimension $`(2k+3g3)`$
* a general $`f`$ is a free curve $`f:^1M`$, such that $`f^{}T_MO^g𝒜`$, where $`𝒜`$ is some positive vector bundle on $`^1`$
* the MRC fibration of $``$ is given by a rational map $`J(C)`$

We recall that if $`X`$ is a smooth projective variety and $`f:^1X`$ is a morphism, there is a lower bound for the dimension of the irreducible component of $`\text{Hom}(^1,X)`$, called the *expected dimension* of $`\text{Hom}(^1,X)`$ at the point $`f`$. It is given by the Euler characteristic of the bundle $`f^{}T_X`$ on $`^1`$, which by Riemann-Roch is:

$$\chi (^1,f^{}T_X)=\text{deg}(f^{}T_X)+\text{dim }X=f_{}[^1].K_X+\text{dim }X$$

Moreover, the tangent space to $`\text{Hom}(^1,X)`$ at $`f`$ is isomorphic to $`\text{H}^0(^1,f^{}T_X)`$. A point $`f`$ is called *unobstructed* if $`\text{H}^1(^1,f^{}T_X)=0`$. Note that it follows that $`\text{Hom}(^1,X)`$ is smooth at an unobstructed point $`f`$; hence, there is a unique irreducible component of $`\text{Hom}(^1,X)`$, of the expected dimension, that contains $`f`$.

The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we give the construction about extensions of line bundles. In Section 3 we construct rational curves in spaces of extensions of line bundles and we prove the existence of the nice component for $`k`$ odd. In Section 4, we compute $`f^{}T_M`$ for the rational curves $`f:^1M`$ constructed in Section 3 and prove Theorem 1.2 for $`k`$ odd. We also prove the existence of the almost nice component. In Section 5, we give the construction about extensions of skyscraper sheaves by rank $`2`$ vector bundles. In Section 6 we construct rational curves in such spaces of extensions and we prove the existence of the nice component for $`k`$ even. In Section 7, we compute $`f^{}T_M`$ for the rational curves $`f:^1M`$ constructed in Section 6 and prove Theorem 1.2 for $`k`$ even. In Section 8 we summarize our results for the case when $`g=2`$.

All our schemes, morphisms and products of schemes are over $``$, unless otherwise stated. If $``$ is a locally free sheaf on a scheme $`X`$, by $`()`$ we mean $`\text{Proj}(\text{Sym}(^{})`$. When working with line bundles over $`^1\times C`$, if $``$ is a line bundle on $`^1`$ and $`𝒩`$ is a line bundle on $`C`$, we use the notation $`𝒩`$ for $`p_1^{}p_2^{}𝒩`$, where $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ are the two projections.

Acknowledgements. I am very much indebted to Johan de Jong for many suggestions and ideas. I also thank Steven Kleiman, Mihnea Popa and Jason Starr, for helpful discussions. Finally, I would like to thank my advisor, Joe Harris, for introducing me to this beautiful subject and for the advice and inspiration that he provided for me in the last couple of years.

## 2. Extensions of line bundles

Let $`d`$ be an integer and $`\zeta `$ be a line bundle on $`C`$ of degree $`d`$. Let $`M_\zeta `$ be the coarse moduli scheme of semistable, rank $`2`$ vector bundles on $`C`$, having determinant $`\zeta `$. We construct maps from spaces of extensions of line bundles on $`C`$ to $`M_\zeta `$. The fact that we do this for any degree $`d`$ line bundle $`\zeta `$, and not only for $`\xi `$, will be useful in the proof of Lemma 5.4.

Let $`e`$ be an integer such that $`e>\frac{d}{2}`$ and let $``$ be a line bundle on $`C`$ of degree $`e`$. Consider extensions:

$$0^1\zeta 0.$$
($``$)
Then $``$ is a rank $`2`$ vector bundle and such extensions are classified by the vector space

$$V_{}=\text{Ext}_C^1(^1\zeta ,)\text{H}^1(C,^2\zeta ^1)$$

Using Riemann-Roch, the vector space $`V_{}`$ has dimension

$$\text{dim }V_{}=\text{deg}(^2\zeta ^1)1+g=2e+d+g1$$

Clearly, any two nonzero elements $`v,v^{}`$ of $`V_{}`$ which differ by a scalar define isomorphic vector bundles $``$. Therefore the isomorphism classes of non-trivial extensions as above are parametrized by the projective space $`(V_{})=\text{Proj}(\text{Sym}V_{}^{})`$.

We now let $``$ vary in the Picard variety $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ of line bundles on $`C`$ of degree $`e`$ and define a global parameter space for extensions of type $`()`$. Let $`𝒜`$ be a Poincaré bundle on $`\text{Pic}^e(C)\times C`$ and let $`\pi _1,\pi _2`$ be the two projections from $`\text{Pic}^e(C)\times C`$. Define on $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ the relative extension sheaf

$$𝒮=xt_{\text{Pic}^e(C)\times C|\text{Pic}^e(C)}^1(\pi _1^{}𝒜^1\pi _2^{}\zeta ,\pi _1^{}𝒜)$$

Note that $`𝒮`$ is a locally free sheaf. Let $`X`$ be the projective bundle $`(𝒮)`$ and let

$$p:X\text{Pic}^e(C)$$
(2.1)
be the corresponding map. (Note that $`X`$ depends on the choice of $`𝒜`$.)

Let $`\nu _1,\nu _2`$ be the two projections from $`X\times C`$. There is a universal extension on $`X\times C`$:

$$0\nu _1^{}O_X(1)p^{}𝒜𝒢p^{}(𝒜^1)\nu _2^{}\zeta 0.$$
(2.2)
It is universal in the sense that, if $`xX`$ and we let $`=p(x)\text{Pic}^e(C)`$, when we restrict (2.2) to $`\{x\}\times C`$, we get an exact sequence:

$$0𝒢_x^1\zeta 0$$
(2.3)
whose class in $`(V_{})p^1(\{\})`$ is $`x`$.

### 2.1. The locus of unstable extensions

Consider the space of extensions $`X`$. Let $`ZX`$ (respectively $`Z^{}X`$) be the locus of those $`xX`$ for which the bundle $`𝒢_x`$ of (2.3) is unstable (respectively not stable). Since being semistable (respectively stable) is an open condition, it follows that $`Z`$ and $`Z^{}`$ are closed subsets of $`X`$. The following lemma gives an estimate of their codimension.

###### Lemma 2.1.

For each $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$, there are projective irreducible varieties $`Z_{}`$ and $`Z_{}^{}`$, such that $`Z_{}Z_{}^{}(V_{})`$, corresponding to the unstable, respectively not stable, extensions in $`(V_{})`$ and we distinguish the following cases:

* If $`d`$ is odd, then $`Z_{}=Z_{}^{}`$ has codimension at least $`g`$.
* If $`d`$ is even, then $`Z_{}`$ has codimension at least $`(g+1)`$ and $`Z_{}^{}`$ has codimension at least $`(g1)`$.

In both cases, when $`e=1\frac{d}{2}`$, then $`Z_{}=\mathrm{}`$.

###### Proof.

We analyze first the not stable locus $`Z_{}^{}`$. The bundle $``$ in ($``$) is not stable if and only if there exists a line bundle $`^{}`$ on $`C`$ of degree $`\frac{d}{2}`$ and a non-zero morphism $`^{}`$. Then the morphism $`^{}^1\zeta `$ is non-zero as well. This is because there is no non-zero morphism $`^{}`$ as

$$\text{deg}(^{})=\frac{d}{2}>e=\text{deg}()$$

Therefore, it follows that there is some effective divisor $`D`$ on $`C`$ of degree $`e+d\frac{d}{2}`$ such that $`^{}^1\zeta (D)`$. Let $`^{}`$ be the kernel of the composition morphism

$$^1\zeta ^1\zeta _{|D}$$

There is a commutative diagram with the two horizontal sequences exact:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccc}0& & ^{}& & & & ^1\zeta _{|D}& & 0\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 0& & ^1\zeta (D)& & ^1\zeta & & ^1\zeta _{|D}& & 0\end{array}$$

Using the snake lemma, we get that there is an exact sequence

$$0^{}^1\zeta (D)0.$$
(2.4)
Moreover, the following composition of morphisms is zero:

$$^1\zeta (D)^{}^1\zeta _{|D}$$

Then $`^1\zeta (D)`$ must map to the subbundle $`^{}`$ of $``$ and the exact sequence (2.4) is split. We conclude that the vector $`vV_{}=\text{Ext}_C^1(^1\zeta ,)`$, corresponding to an unstable extension, is in the kernel $`\text{Ext}_C^1(^1\zeta O_D,)`$ of the surjective map

$$\text{Ext}_C^1(^1\zeta ,)\text{Ext}_C^1(^1(D)\zeta ,)$$

Using duality, we have

$$\text{Ext}_C^1(^1\zeta O_D,)\text{H}^0(C,^2\zeta K_CO_D)$$

Therefore, the non-stable extensions in $`V_{}`$ form a $`l:=\text{deg}(D)=e+d\frac{d}{2}`$ dimensional linear subspace, for each $`D`$ effective divisor of degree $`l`$. If we let $`D`$ vary in $`\text{Sym}^l(C)`$ we get that the locus of not stable extensions in $`V_{}`$ is at most $`2l`$-dimensional.

To make this precise, let $`𝒟\text{Sym}^l(C)\times C`$ be the universal divisor and $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ be the two projections from $`\text{Sym}^l(C)\times C`$. Define the relative extension sheaf

$$=xt_{\text{Sym}^l(C)\times C|\text{Sym}^l(C)}^1(p_2^{}(^1\zeta )O_𝒟,p_2^{})$$

Note that $``$ is a locally free sheaf; moreover, $``$ is a subbundle of the trivial bundle $`OV_{}`$ on $`\text{Sym}^l(C)`$. We have that the projective bundle $`()`$ is a closed subvariety in $`\text{Sym}^l(C)\times (V_{})`$ and the not stable locus $`Z_{}^{}`$ in $`(V_{})`$ is given by the image of $`()`$ in $`(V_{})`$. It follows that

$$\text{codim }_{(V_{})}Z_{}^{}(2e+d+g1)2l=2\frac{d}{2}d+g1$$

If $`d`$ is odd, then $`Z_{}^{}=Z_{}`$ and its codimension is at least $`g`$. If $`d`$ is even, the codimension of $`Z_{}^{}`$ is at least $`g1`$. As for the unstable locus $`Z_{}`$, by a similar argument, the bundle $``$ is not semistable if and only if there exists on $`C`$ a degree $`\frac{d}{2}+1`$ line bundle $`^{}`$ and a non-zero morphism $`^{}.`$ By degree considerations, the morphism $`^{}^1\zeta `$ is non-zero and we have $`^{}^1\zeta (D)`$ for some effective divisor $`D`$ on $`C`$ of degree $`l:=e+\frac{d}{2}1.`$ The locus of unstable extensions in $`V_{}`$ is a linear subspace of dimension at most $`2l`$. Hence, the codimension of $`Z_{}`$ is at least $`(2e+d+g1)2l=g+1`$.

Note that, in both cases, if $`l=0`$ ($`e=1\frac{d}{2}`$), we have $`Z_{}=\mathrm{}`$. ∎

###### Corollary 2.2.

There are projective irreducible varieties $`Z`$ and $`Z^{}`$, such that $`ZZ^{}X`$, corresponding to the unstable, respectively not stable, extensions in $`X`$ and we distinguish the following cases:

* If $`d`$ is odd, then $`Z=Z^{}`$ has codimension at least $`g`$ in $`X`$
* If $`d`$ is even, then $`Z`$ (resp. $`Z^{}`$) has codimension at least $`(g+1)`$ (resp. $`(g1)`$) in $`X`$

In both cases, if $`e=1\frac{d}{2}`$, then $`Z=\mathrm{}`$.

It follows from Corollary 2.2 and from the coarse moduli property of the moduli scheme $`M_\zeta `$, that the universal bundle $`𝒢`$ of (2.2), restricted to $`(XZ)\times C`$, induces a well-defined morphism

$$\kappa :XZM_\zeta $$
(2.5)
which sends an extension $`()`$ to the class of the bundle $``$ in $`M_\zeta `$.

### 2.2. The global space of extensions of line bundles

Let now $`\zeta `$ vary in $`\text{Pic}^d(C)`$ and denote $`V_{,\zeta }=\text{Ext}_C^1(^1\zeta ,)`$. In a similar way as in the construction of (2.1), there is a projective bundle

$$q:𝒳\text{Pic}^e(C)\times \text{Pic}^d(C)$$

whose fiber at a point $`(,\zeta )\text{Pic}^e(C)\times \text{Pic}^d(C)`$ is canonically isomorphic to $`(V_{,\zeta })`$.

Let $`\rho _1,\rho _2`$ be the two projections from $`𝒳\times C`$. There is a universal extension on $`𝒳\times C`$:

$$0q^{}𝒜_1\rho _1^{}O_𝒳(1)q^{}(𝒜_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}𝒜_2)0$$
(2.6)
As in Corollary 2.2, there are projective irreducible varieties $`𝒵`$ and $`𝒵^{}`$, corresponding to the unstable, respectively not stable, extensions in $`𝒳`$ and we have $`𝒵𝒵^{}𝒳`$.

Let $`M_d`$ be the coarse moduli scheme of rank $`2`$, degree $`d`$, semistable vector bundles of degree $`d`$. Then the universal bundle $``$ of (2.6) induces a morphism $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }`$, that is a global version of the morphism $`\kappa `$ of (2.5):

$$\stackrel{~}{\kappa }:𝒳𝒵M_d$$
(2.7)
Notation. From now on, we let $`\xi `$ to be a degree $`1`$ line bundle on $`C`$ and we denote by $`M`$ the moduli space of stable, rank $`2`$ vector bundles on $`C`$, with determinant $`\xi `$.

### 2.3. The morphism $`\kappa `$

Consider the morphism (2.5) for the case when $`\zeta =\xi `$:

$$\kappa :XZM$$

If $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ denote by $`\kappa _{}`$ the restriction of $`\kappa `$ to the fiber of $`p:X\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ at $`\{\}`$

$$\kappa _{}:(V_{})Z_{}M$$

Note that $`\text{dim }(V_{})=2e+g1`$, $`\text{dim }X=2e+2g1`$, $`\text{dim }M=3g3`$.

###### Lemma 2.3.

If $`e(\frac{g}{2}1)`$, for $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ general, the morphism $`\kappa _{}`$ is injective.

###### Proof.

Assume that there are two extensions in $`V_{}=\text{Ext}_C^1(^1\xi ,)`$ with the same middle term. If the two extensions correspond to different elements in $`(V_{})`$, then there is a non-zero morphism $`^1\xi `$, i.e., $`\text{H}^0(^2\xi )0`$. But if $`e(\frac{g}{2}1)`$ and $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ is general, then $`\text{H}^0(^2\xi )=0`$ (see \[ACGH\], IV.4.5) and our conclusion follows. ∎

###### Corollary 2.4.

If $`\text{Pic}^0(C)`$ is general, the morphism $`\kappa _{}`$ gives a linear embedding of $`(V_{})^{g1}`$ into $`M`$.

It follows from \[Bertram\] (Prop. 4.5) that if $`e(g1)`$, for any $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$, the morphism $`\kappa _{}`$ is dominant. Note that the bound for $`e`$ is optimal.

## 3. The nice component of the space of rational curves of odd degree

If $`k`$ is a positive integer, let $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ be the Hilbert scheme of morphisms $`^1M`$ of degree $`k`$ \[Kollár\]. The scheme $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ is an open in a Hilbert scheme of rational curves in $`^1\times M`$ (the graph of $`f`$ is used to embed $`^1`$ into $`^1\times M`$).

### 3.1. The degree of the line bundle $`\kappa _{}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$

For $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ consider the morphism $`\kappa _{}:(V_{})Z_{}M`$. By Lemma 2.1, the codimension of $`Z_{}`$ in $`(V_{})`$ is at least $`g2`$. We compute the degree of the line bundle $`\kappa _{}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$, using the following more general result.

###### Lemma 3.1.

Let $`S`$ be a smooth variety and $``$ a rank $`2`$ vector bundle on $`S\times C`$, such that, for any $`sS`$, the restriction $`_s`$ of $``$ to $`\{s\}\times C`$ is stable, of determinant $`\xi `$, so that $``$ induces a morphism $`f:SM`$. Denote by $`\pi _1`$ and $`\pi _2`$ the two projections from $`S\times C`$. We have:

$$c_1(f^{}(\mathrm{\Theta }))=\pi _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(2c_2()\frac{c_1()^2}{2})$$

###### Proof.

Denote by $`\text{ad}()`$ the subbundle of $`nd()^{}`$ of endomorphisms of trace zero. There is a split exact sequence:

$$0\text{ad}()^{}O0$$

Let $`T_M`$ be the tangent bundle of $`M`$. We have from \[News72\] that:

$$f^{}(T_M)\text{R}^1\pi _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}())$$
(3.1)
If $``$ is a bundle on $`S\times C`$, by the Grothendieck-Riemann-Roch formula, we have the following relations in $`A(S)`$:

$$ch(\pi _{1}^{}{}_{!}{}^{}())=\pi _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(ch().td(\pi _{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}T_C))$$

$$c_1(\pi _{1}^{}{}_{!}{}^{}())=\frac{1}{2}\pi _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(c_1^2()2c_2()c_1().\pi _{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}c_1(K_C))$$

We apply this to $`=\text{ad}()`$. We have $`\pi _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}())=0`$, $`c_1(\text{ad}())=0`$ and

$$c_2(\text{ad}())=c_2(^{})=4c_2()c_1()^2.$$

Combining all the relations, one gets the formula:

$$c_1(\text{R}^1\pi _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}()))=\pi _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(4c_2()c_1()^2)$$
(3.2)
As $`K_M\mathrm{\Theta }^2`$, the result follows now from (3.1) and (3.2). ∎

###### Corollary 3.2.

We have $`\kappa _{}^{}(\mathrm{\Theta })O(2e+1)`$.

###### Proof.

Consider the restriction of the universal sequence (2.2) to $`(V_{})\times C`$:

$$0\nu _2^{}(1)𝒢_{}\nu _2^{}(^1\xi )0.$$

where $`𝒢_{}`$ is the restriction of the bundle $`𝒢`$ to $`(V_{})\times C`$. If we let $`\{H\}\text{A}((V_{}))`$ be the class of a hyperplane in $`(V_{})`$, we have:

$$c_1(𝒢_{})=\{H\}\times C+(V_{})\times c_1(\xi ),c_2(𝒢_{})=\{H\}\times (c_1(\xi )c_1())$$

The result follows from Lemma 3.1. ∎

### 3.2. The nice component $``$ of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ for $`k=2e+1`$

###### Lemma 3.3.

Let $`f:^1M`$ be the composition

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{})Z_{}& \stackrel{\kappa _{}}{}& M\end{array}$$
(3.3)
where $`h`$ is such that $`h^{}O(1)O(1)`$. Then $`f`$ is an unobstructed point of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$.

###### Proof.

Note that by Corollary 3.2, we have that $`f^{}\mathrm{\Theta }=O(k)`$, so $`f`$ is a point of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$. Consider the exact sequence obtained by pulling back the universal extension (2.2) to $`^1\times C`$ by $`(g\times \text{id}_C)`$:

$$0O(1)O(^1\xi )0.$$
(3.4)
The bundle $``$ induces the morphism $`f:^1M`$. It follows that if $`\eta `$ is the generic point of $`C`$, then $`_\eta O(1)O`$. From the more general Lemma 3.4, it follows that $`f`$ is an unobstructed point in $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$. ∎

###### Lemma 3.4.

Let $`f:^1M`$ be a morphism given by the vector bundle $``$ on $`^1\times C`$ with the property that, if $`\eta `$ is the generic point of $`C`$, then the bundle $`_\eta `$ on $`_\eta ^1`$ is balanced, i.e., it splits as $`O(a)O(b)`$, for some integers $`a`$ and $`b`$ with $`|ba|1`$. Then $`\text{H}^1(^1,f^{}T_M)=0`$.

###### Proof.

We have from \[News72\] that $`f^{}T_M\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}())`$ and $`\text{R}^ip_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}())=0`$, for any $`i1`$ (where $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ are the two projections from $`^1\times C`$). There are two Leray spectral sequences:

$$\text{H}^i(^1,\text{R}^jp_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}()))\text{H}^{i+j}(^1\times C,\text{ad}())$$

$$\text{H}^i(C,\text{R}^jp_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}()))\text{H}^{i+j}(^1\times C,\text{ad}())$$

Then, as for $`i2`$ we have $`\text{R}^ip_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}())=0`$, it follows that

$$\text{H}^1(^1,\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}()))\text{H}^2(^1\times C,\text{ad}())\text{H}^1(\text{R}^1p_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}()))$$
(3.5)
The sheaf $`\text{R}^1p_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}())`$ is supported at a finite number of points of $`C`$, as we have:

$$\text{R}^1p_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}())_\eta \text{H}^1(_\eta ^1,\text{ad}(_\eta ))=0$$

It follows that $`\text{H}^1(\text{R}^1p_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\text{ad}())=0`$ and the result follows from (3.5). ∎

###### Theorem 3.5.

If $`k=2e+1`$ is an odd positive integer, there is an irreducible component $``$ of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, having the expected dimension $`2k+3g3`$, with the following properties:

* A general point $`f`$ is unobstructed and it is obtained as a composition:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{})Z_{}& \stackrel{\kappa _{}}{}& M\end{array}$$

where $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ and $`h`$ is a morphism such that $`h^{}O(1)O(1)`$
* The MRC fibration of $``$ is given by a dominant rational map:

$$\text{Pic}^e(C)$$

which sends a point $`f`$ as in $`i)`$ to $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$.

###### Proof.

Abusing notations, we let $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,XZ)`$ to be the Hilbert scheme of morphisms $`^1XZ`$ that are contained in the fibers of the projective bundle $`p:X\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ and have degree $`1`$ with respect to the relatively ample line bundle $`O_X(1)`$ (see \[Kollár\]). There is a canonical morphism:

$$\pi :\text{Hom}_1(^1,XZ)\text{Pic}^e(C)$$
(3.6)
whose fiber at $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ is $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,(V_{})Z_{})`$. (Note that, as $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ is an abelian variety, any morphism $`^1X`$ must map to a point in $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$.)

One has to notice that a morphism $`^1^r`$ is unobstructed. We have $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,^r)U`$, where $`U^{2r+1}`$ is a dense open set. It follows that $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,XZ)`$ is a smooth, irreducible variety of the expected dimension:

$$\text{dim }\text{Hom}_1(^1,X)=g+2(2e+g1)+1=2k+3g3$$

Then $`\kappa :XZM`$ induces a morphism between the corresponding schemes of morphisms:

$$\psi :\text{Hom}_1(^1,XZ)\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)$$
(3.7)
We prove that the morphism $`\psi `$ is injective. Let $`h`$ and $`h^{}`$ be morphisms $`^1XZ`$, such that $`\kappa h=\kappa h^{}`$. Assume that $`h`$, respectively $`h^{}`$, have image in the fiber of $`p`$ over $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$, respectively $`^{}\text{Pic}^e(C)`$. We have that the following two compositions are equal:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{})Z_{}& \stackrel{\kappa _{}}{}& M\text{and}^1& \stackrel{h^{}}{}& (V_{^{}})Z_{^{}}& \stackrel{\kappa _{^{}}}{}& M\end{array}$$

As in (3.4), there are two exact sequences on $`^1\times C`$:

$$0O(1)O(^1\xi )0.$$
(3.8)
$$0O(1)^{}^{}O(_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}\xi )0.$$
(3.9)
Since $``$ and $`^{}`$ induce the same morphism $`^1M`$, there is an integer $`m`$ such that $`^{}p_1^{}O(m)`$ (without loss of generality, we may assume $`m0`$). As there are no non-zero morphisms $`O(1)O(m)`$, there is a commutative diagram:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccc}0& & O(1)& & & & O(^1\xi )& & 0\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 0& & O(1m)^{}& & ^{}(m)& & O(m)(_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}\xi )& & 0\end{array}$$
(3.10)
Since a surjective morphism of line bundles is an isomorphism, it follows that all the vertical arrows in (3.10) are isomorphisms. Hence, $`m=0`$, $`^{}`$ and $`^{}`$. As endomorphisms of line bundles are given by multiplication with scalars, the extensions (3.8) and (3.9) are scalar multiples of each other. Then we must have $`h=h^{}`$, as $`h`$ sends a point $`p^1`$ to the class in $`(V_{})`$ of the extension obtained by restricting (3.8) to $`\{p\}\times C`$

$$0_p^1\xi 0$$

It follows that $`\psi `$ is injective. Let $``$ be the closure of the image of the morphism $`\psi `$ with the reduced structure. We have that $``$ is an irreducible closed subvariety of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, birational to $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,XZ)`$, which has the expected dimension $`2k+3g3`$. By Lemma 3.3, a general point $`f`$ is unobstructed. It follows that $``$ is the unique irreducible component of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ containing the point $`f`$. This proves i).

For ii), consider the morphism $`\pi :\text{Hom}_1(^1,XZ)\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ of (3.6). Since $``$ is birational to $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,XZ)`$ , there is a rational map:

$$\rho :\text{Pic}^e(C)$$

We claim that this is the MRC fibration of $``$. As $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ is an abelian variety, so it does not contain any rational curves, it is enough to prove that the fibers of $`\rho `$ are rationally connected (or, equivalently, the fibers of $`\pi `$ are rationally connected). But the fiber of $`\pi `$ at a point $``$ is $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,(V_{})Z_{})`$, which is a rational variety, and this proves ii). ∎

### 3.3. The subvarieties $`𝒮(e,n)\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$

If $`n1`$ is any integer, we let $`k=n(2e+1)`$. Using the same arguments as in the proof of Theorem 3.5, one can still prove that there is an injective morphism:

$$\psi :\text{Hom}_n(^1,XZ)\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)$$

It follows that there are irreducible subvarieties $`𝒮(e,n)\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ such that:

* A general point $`f𝒮(e,n)`$ is obtained as a composition

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{})Z_{}& \stackrel{\kappa _{}}{}& M_\xi \end{array}$$
(3.11)
where $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ and $`h`$ is a morphism such that $`h^{}O(1)O(n)`$
* The MRC fibration of $`𝒮(e,n)`$ is given by a rational map:

$$𝒮(e,n)\text{Pic}^e(C)$$

which sends a general point $`f`$ as in $`i)`$ to $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$.

Note that for $`n=1`$ the subvariety $`𝒮(k,1)`$ is the nice component $``$.

### Remark

If $`n>1`$, we cannot apply the Lemma 3.4 to prove that a general point $`f𝒮(e,n)`$ is unobstructed. Note that the dimension of $`𝒮(e,n)`$ is equal to:

$$\text{dim }\text{Hom}_n(^1,XZ)=g+(2e+g)(n+1)$$

For $`n>1`$ we have that $`\text{dim }𝒮(e,n)(2k+3g3)`$ if and only if $`e\frac{g}{2}1`$. As any irreducible component has at least the expected dimension, it follows that if $`n>1`$ and $`e>\frac{g}{2}1`$, then $`𝒮(e,n)`$ is not an irreducible component.

If $`e<\frac{g}{2}1`$, then $`\text{dim }𝒮(e,n)>(2k+3g3)`$. It follows that any point of $`𝒮(e,n)`$ is obstructed. With our methods so far, we are not able to prove that $`𝒮(e,n)`$ is an irreducible component. We will prove in \[C2\] that this is indeed the case.

If $`e=\frac{g}{2}1`$ ($`g`$ even), note that $`k`$ must be divisible by $`(g1)`$. We prove in 4.2 that this is another irreducible component.

## 4. Free rational curves on $`M`$ and the almost nice component

### 4.1. Free rational curves

We recall some terminology. If $`𝒢_iO(a_i)`$ is a vector bundle on $`^1`$, we say that $`𝒢`$ is *positive* (resp. *non-negative*), if for all $`i`$, we have $`a_i>0`$ (resp. $`a_i0`$). We say that a rational curve $`f:^1M`$ is *very free* (resp. *free*), if the bundle $`f^{}T_M`$ is positive (resp. non-negative).

###### Lemma 4.1.

Let $`f:^1M`$ be a composition as in (3.11). For $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ general, we distinguish the following cases:

* If $`e<\frac{g}{2}1`$, then $`f^{}T_MO(n)^{g2e2}O^g𝒜`$, for some $`𝒜`$ positive
* If $`e=\frac{g}{2}1`$ ($`g`$ even), then $`f^{}T_MO^g𝒜`$, for some $`𝒜`$ positive
* If $`e\frac{g}{2}1`$, then $`f`$ is a free curve, with at most $`g`$ trivial components

Moreover, if $`e2g1`$, for any $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$, we have that $`f`$ is a very free curve.

###### Proof.

Recall that $`f:^1M`$ is induced by the vector bundle $``$ on $`^1\times C`$, then $`f^{}T_M=\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}\text{ad}()`$. As $`^{}\text{ad}()O`$, it follows that $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(^{})f^{}T_MO^g`$. We denote

$$𝒯=\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(^{}).$$

We compute $`𝒯`$ for $`f`$ as in (3.11). There is an exact sequence on $`^1\times C`$:

$$0O(n)O(^1\xi )0$$
(4.1)
Denote

$$𝒮^{}=(O(\xi ^1)),𝒮^{\prime \prime }=(O(n)^1)$$

By tensoring (4.1) with $`O(\xi ^1)`$, resp. with $`O(n)^1`$, we get exact sequences:

$$0O(n)(^2\xi ^1)𝒮^{}O0$$
(4.2)
$$0O𝒮^{\prime \prime }O(n)(^2\xi )0$$
(4.3)
By dualizing (4.1) and tensoring with $``$, we get an exact sequence:

$$0𝒮^{}^{}𝒮^{\prime \prime }0$$
(4.4)
Note that $`\text{H}^0(C,𝒮_p^{})\text{Hom}(^1\xi ,_p)`$. Since $`_p`$ is stable, of degree $`1`$, for any $`p^1`$, there are no non-zero morphisms $`^1\xi _p`$. It follows that $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})=0`$.

Applying $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ to (4.2) and using that $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})=0`$, we have an exact sequence:

$$0OO(n)\text{H}^1(C,^2\xi ^1)\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})O^g0$$
(4.5)
Applying $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ to (4.3) we have another sequence

$$\begin{array}{c}0Op_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O(n)\text{H}^0(C,^2\xi )O^g\\ \text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O(n)\text{H}^1(C,^2\xi )0\end{array}$$
(4.6)
Applying $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ to (4.4), and using that $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(^{})O`$, we have a sequence

$$0Op_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})𝒯\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })0$$
(4.7)
From (4.5), it follows that there is a positive vector bundle $`𝒜`$ such that

$$\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})O^g𝒜$$
(4.8)
If $`e\frac{g}{2}1`$ and $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ is general, then $`\text{H}^1(C,^2\xi )=0`$ (see \[ACGH\], IV.4.5). In this case, we have from (4.6) and (4.7) that $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })`$ and $`𝒯`$ are non-negative. It follows that $`f^{}T_M`$ is non-negative. Note that from (4.6) we have that $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })`$ has at most $`g`$ trivial components. It follows from (4.8) and (4.7) that $`𝒯`$ has at most $`2g`$ trivial components. Hence, $`f^{}T_M`$ has at most $`g`$ trivial components. This proves iii).

If $`e=\frac{g}{2}1`$, then for $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ general, we have $`\text{H}^0(C,^2\xi )=0`$. It follows from (4.6) that $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O`$ and $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O^g`$. From (4.7), there is an exact sequence:

$$0\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})𝒯\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })0$$

As $`𝒯f^{}T_MO^g`$, it follows using (4.8) that $`f^{}T_MO^g𝒜`$. This proves ii).

We prove now i). If $`e<\frac{g}{2}1`$ and $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ is general, then $`\text{H}^0(C,^2\xi )=0`$. By Riemann-Roch, $`\text{h}^1(C,^2\xi )=g2e2`$. It follows from (4.6) that $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O`$ and there is an exact sequence:

$$0O^g\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O(n)^{g2e2}0$$

Then $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O^gO(n)^{g2e2}`$. We have from (4.7) that there is an exact sequence:

$$0\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})𝒯\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })0$$
(4.9)
As $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O^gO(n)^{g2e2}`$, it follows from (4.8) that the sequence (4.9) is split. Since $`𝒯f^{}T_MO^g`$, we have:

$$f^{}T_MO(n)^{g2e2}O^g𝒜$$

This proves i).

Assume $`e2g1`$. We have $`\text{deg}(K_C^1^1)0`$. Since for any $`p^1`$, the bundle $`_p^{}`$ stable, of degree $`1`$, there are no non-zero morphisms $`K_C^1^1_p^{}`$. It follows that

$$\text{H}^0(C,K_C_p^{})\text{Hom}(K_C^1^1,_p)=0$$

By Serre duality, we have $`\text{H}^1(C,^1_p)=0`$ for any $`p^1`$. Then $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })=0`$. From (4.7) we have an exact sequence:

$$0Op_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})𝒯0$$

As $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})=O^g𝒜`$ ($`𝒜`$ positive) and $`𝒯=O^gf^{}T_M`$, it follows that $`f^{}T_M`$ is positive. ∎

###### Corollary 4.2.

Let $`k`$ be an odd integer and let $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ be the nice component. We distinguish the following cases:

* If $`k(g1)`$, then for general $`f`$, we have

$$f^{}T_MO(1)^{gk1}O^gO(1)^{k+g3}O(2)$$
* If $`k(g1)`$, then a general $`f`$ is a free curve with at most $`g`$ trivial components
* If $`k(2g1)`$, then a general $`f`$ is a very free curve

###### Proof.

Parts i) and ii) are immediate consequences of Lemma 4.1 for the case when $`n=1`$ and $`k=2e+1`$. Note that in this case, the bundle $`𝒜`$ from (4.8) can be computed from (4.5) to be $`O(1)^{2e+g2}O(2)`$.

For part iii), note that we have from Lemma 4.1 that if $`k(4g1)`$, then a general $`f`$ is a very free curve. We may improve this bound by observing that if $`k(2g1)`$, then the morphism $`\kappa _{}`$ is dominant (\[Bertram\], Prop.4.5). For general $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$, we have by Lemma 4.1 that for any $`h:^1(V_{})Z_{}`$, if we let $`f=\kappa _{}h`$, then $`f`$ is a free curve. Since any degree $`1`$ morphism $`h`$ is very free (as $`h^{}T_{(V_{})}O(1)^{2e+g2}O(2)`$), it follows from Lemma 4.3 that the morphism $`f`$ is very free. ∎

###### Lemma 4.3.

Let $`X`$ and $`Y`$ be smooth varieties and let $`\varphi :XY`$ be a dominant morphism. Let $`h:^1X`$ be a rational curve intersecting the smooth locus of the morphism $`\varphi `$. Let $`f=\varphi h`$ and assume that $`f`$ is a free curve and that $`h`$ is very free. Then $`f`$ must be very free.

###### Proof.

Denote with $`u`$ the morphism $`h^{}T_Xf^{}T_Y`$ of vector bundles on $`^1`$. Assume that $`f`$ is not very free, hence, the bundle $`f^{}T_Y`$ is non-negative with $`r>0`$ trivial components. As $`h^{}T_X`$ is positive, it follows that $`O^r`$ is a subsheaf of the cokernel of $`u`$. But since $`h`$ intersects the smooth locus of $`\varphi `$, the morphism $`u`$ is generically surjective, so its cokernel is supported at a finite number of points and we get a contradiction. ∎

### 4.2. The almost nice component of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$

###### Theorem 4.4.

If $`g`$ is even and $`k>0`$ is an integer that is divisible by $`(g1)`$, there is an irreducible component $`^{}\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, having the expected dimension $`(2k+3g3)`$ and with the following properties:

* A general point $`f^{}`$ is obtained as a composition:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{})Z_{}& \stackrel{\kappa _{}}{}& M\end{array}$$

where $`\text{Pic}^{1\frac{g}{2}}(C)`$ and $`h`$ is a morphism such that $`h^{}O(1)O(\frac{k}{g1})`$
* The MRC fibration of $`^{}`$ is given by a rational map:

$$\text{Pic}^{1\frac{g}{2}}(C)$$

which sends a point $`f`$ as in $`i)`$ to $`\text{Pic}^{1\frac{g}{2}}(C)`$.
* A general point $`f^{}`$ has the property that $`f^{}T_MO^g𝒜`$, for some positive vector bundle $`𝒜`$

###### Proof.

Let $`^{}`$ be the irreducible subvariety $`𝒮(e,n)\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ constructed in 3.3, for $`e=\frac{g}{2}1`$ and $`n=\frac{k}{g1}`$. We already have i) and ii) from 3.3 and iii) from Lemma 4.1. We only have to prove that $`^{}`$ is an irreducible component.

We noted in 3.3 that the dimension of $`^{}`$ is equal to the expected dimension. By Lemma 4.1, a general point $`f^{}`$ is unobstructed. It follows that $`^{}`$ is the unique irreducible component of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ containing the point $`f`$. ∎

###### Lemma 4.5.

If $`g3`$ the general element in the almost nice component is an embbeded curve. If $`g=2`$, the general element in the almost nice component is a morphism $`^1M`$ that is $`k`$-to-$`1`$ onto a line in $`M`$.

###### Proof.

If $`e=\frac{g}{2}1`$, and $``$ is general in $`\text{Pic}^e(C)`$, the morphism $`\kappa _{}:(V_{})Z_{}M`$ is injective, by Lemma 2.3. Since $`\text{dim }(V_{})=2g3`$, a general morphism $`^1(V_{})`$ of degree $`\frac{k}{g1}`$, will give by composition with $`\kappa _{}`$ an injective morphism $`^1M`$ if and only if $`g3`$. If $`g=2`$ then $`e=0`$ and by Lemma 2.3 it follows that $`\kappa _{}`$ gives a linear embedding of $`^1`$ into $`M`$, and the result follows.

## 5. Extensions of skyscraper sheaves by rank $`2`$ vector bundles

Let $`e1`$ be an integer, $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$ and let $``$ be a rank $`2`$, semistable vector bundle on $`C`$, with $`\text{det}()\xi (D)`$. Consider extensions:

$$0^{}O_D0$$
($``$)
Such extensions are classified by the vector space:

$$V_{D,}:=\text{Ext}_C^1(O_D,)\text{H}^0(C,(D)_{|D})$$
(5.1)
Then the vector space $`V_{D,}`$ has dimension $`2e`$. The isomorphism classes of non-trivial extensions as above are parametrized by the projective space $`(V_{D,})`$.

Let $`M_{1e}`$ be the coarse moduli scheme of rank $`2`$, semistable vector bundles on $`C`$, with determinant of degree $`(1e)`$. Let the determinant map be $`\text{det}:M_{1e}\text{Pic}^{1e}(C)`$. Let $`M_{1e}^sM_{1e}`$ be the locus of stable vector bundles. We now define a parameter space for extensions $`()`$, while we let $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$ and $`M_{1e}^s`$ vary, with the condition that $`\text{det}()\xi (D)`$.

The moduli space $`M_{1e}`$ is the geometric quotient of a smooth, quasiprojective variety $`\overline{M}_{1e}`$, by the action of an algebraic group $`\text{PGL}(r)`$, for some integer $`r`$. Let $`\tau :\overline{M}_{1e}M_{1e}`$ be the quotient map and let $`\overline{M}_{1e}^s=\tau ^1(\overline{M}_{1e}^s)`$. Note that there is a Poincaré bundle $`𝒱`$ on $`\overline{M}_{1e}\times C`$.

Define $`\theta :\text{Pic}^{1e}(C)\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ to be the morphism that sends $``$ to $`\xi ^1`$. Consider the composition $`\theta (\text{det})\tau :\overline{M}_{1e}^s\text{Pic}^e(C)`$. We define $`S^{}`$ to be the fiber product

$$S^{}=\overline{M}_{1e}^s\times _{\text{Pic}^e(C)}\text{Sym}^e(C)$$
(5.2)
Note that $`S^{}`$ is a smooth variety of dimension $`(3g3)+e+\text{dim }\text{PGL}(r)`$.

Let $`𝒱_S^{}`$ be the pull-back of the bundle $`𝒱`$ to $`S^{}\times C`$ and let $`𝒟_S^{}S^{}\times C`$ be the universal scheme coming from $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$. Define on $`S^{}`$ the relative extension sheaf

$$𝒮=xt_{S^{}\times C|S^{}}^1(O_{𝒟_S^{}},𝒱_S^{})$$

Note that $`𝒮`$ is a locally free sheaf. Let $`W^{}`$ be the projective bundle $`(𝒮)`$ and let

$$p:W^{}S^{}$$
(5.3)
be the corresponding map. If $`\mu _1,\mu _2`$ are the two projections from $`W^{}\times C`$, there is a universal extension on $`W^{}\times C`$:

$$0\mu _1^{}O_W^{}p^{}𝒱_S^{}𝒥p^{}O_{𝒟_S^{}}0.$$
(5.4)
### 5.1. The locus of not locally free extensions

Consider the space of extensions $`W^{}`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }W^{}`$ be the locus of those $`wW^{}`$, for which the bundle $`𝒥_w`$ of (5.4) is not locally free. The following lemma gives an estimate of its codimension.

###### Lemma 5.1.

For $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$ and $``$ a rank $`2`$ vector bundle such that $`\text{det}()\xi (D)`$, there is a closed subvariety $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{D,}(V_{D,})`$, corresponding to not locally free extensions in $`(V_{D,})`$. If $`e2`$, then $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{D,}`$ consists of a union of $`e`$ linear subspaces of codimension $`2`$. If $`e=1`$, then $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{D,}=\mathrm{}`$.

###### Proof.

Denote $`V=V_{D,}`$. Let $`D`$ consist of points $`y_1,\mathrm{},y_e`$ on $`C`$ (not necessarily distinct). For $`i\{1,\mathrm{},e\}`$, consider the $`2`$-dimensional vector spaces $`V_i=\text{Ext}_C^1(O_{y_i},)`$. There is an isomorphism $`V_{i=1}^eV_i`$. If $`()`$ corresponds to $`v=(v_1,\mathrm{},v_e)V`$, then it follows that $`^{}`$ is not locally free if and only if $`v_i=0`$ for some $`i`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{D,}`$. If $`e=1`$, then $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{}`$. If $`e2`$, then $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(V)`$ is the union of the linear spaces $`v_i=0`$. ∎

###### Corollary 5.2.

There is a closed subvariety $`\mathrm{\Gamma }W^{}`$, corresponding to extensions in $`W^{}`$ that are not locally free, and all the irreducible components of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ have codimension at least $`2`$ if $`e2`$. If $`e=1`$, then $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{}`$.

### 5.2. Action of $`\text{Aut }(O_D)`$ on $`(V_{D,})`$

Consider an extension

$$0^{}O_D0$$

Clearly, the group $`\text{Aut }(O_D)`$ acts on $`V_{D,}`$, as well as on $`(V_{D,})`$.

Let $`D`$ consist of distinct points $`p_1,\mathrm{},p_e`$. If we let $`V=V_{D,}`$ and $`x_i,y_i`$ be coordinates on $`V_i=\text{Ext}(O_{p_i},)`$, then the group $`\text{Aut }(O_D)𝔾_m^e`$ acts on $`(V)`$ by:

$$(\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _e).(x_1,y_1,\mathrm{},x_e,y_e)(\lambda _1x_1,\lambda _1y_1,\mathrm{},\lambda _ex_e,\lambda _ey_e)$$

###### Lemma 5.3.

Let $`D`$ consist of distinct points $`p_1,\mathrm{},p_e`$. The orbits for the action of $`\text{Aut }(O_D)`$ on $`(V_{D,})`$ are $`(e1)`$-dimensional linear subspaces of $`(V_{D,})`$.

###### Proof.

Consider an extension corresponding to a point $`p(V)`$:

$$0^{}O_D0$$

An extension in the same orbit comes from $`\text{Aut }(O_D)`$. As in the proof of Lemma 5.1, let $`V_i=\text{Ext}(O_{p_i},)`$. Denote $`L_i`$ the line in $`(V)`$ given by $`(V_i)`$.

A point $`p(V)`$ that does not lie on any of the lines corresponds to a locally free extension. Note that the point $`p`$ is contained in a unique $`(e1)`$-linear subspace in $`(V)`$ that intersects each line $`L_i`$ in only one point, say $`q_i`$. Since by the action of $`\text{Aut }(O_D)`$ we do not change the points $`q_i`$, it follows that the orbit of the point $`p`$ is precisely the $`(e1)`$-linear subspace in $`(V)`$ determined by the points $`q_i`$. ∎

### 5.3. The locus of unstable extensions

###### Lemma 5.4.

For any $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$ and $`M_{\xi (D)}^s`$ general, there is a closed subvariety $`Y_{D,}(V_{D,})\mathrm{\Gamma }_{D,E}`$, corresponding to unstable extensions, and it has all the irreducible components of codimension at least $`2`$. If $`e=1`$, then $`Y_{D,}=\mathrm{}`$.

###### Proof.

The bundle $`^{}`$ in $`()`$ is not stable if and only if there is a line bundle $``$ on $`C`$ of degree $`\text{deg}()1`$ and an extension:

$$0^{}^1\xi 0$$

Let $`h`$ be the morphism obtained by the composition $`^{}O_D`$. If $`h=0`$, then $``$ is a subbundle of $``$. But $``$ is a stable bundle of degree $`1e`$ and we get a contradiction, so we must have $`h0`$. Then there is $`i\{1,\mathrm{},e\}`$ and $`D_i\text{Sym}^i(C)`$, with $`D_iD`$, such that $`\text{im }(f)=O_{D_i}`$. Let $`𝒦=\text{ker }(h)`$. It follows that there are exact sequences:

$$0𝒦O_{D_i}0$$
($`^{}`$)
$$0𝒦𝒦^1\xi (D)0$$

Let $`f=\text{deg}(𝒦)`$. Note that we have $`f=i\text{deg}()(e1)`$. Since $``$ is stable, we have $`f\frac{e}{2}`$. Moreover, we have that $`(^{})`$ maps to $`()`$ by the composition:

$$\text{Ext}^1(O_{D_i},𝒦)\text{Ext}^1(O_D,𝒦)\text{Ext}^1(O_D,)$$
(5.5)
We have so far proved that when $``$ is stable, we have that $`^{}`$ is unstable if and only if there are integers $`i`$ and $`f`$, such that $`ei1`$ and $`e1f\frac{e}{2}`$, a $`0`$-cycle $`D_iD`$ of length $`i`$, plus the following data:

* a saturated line subbundle $`𝒦`$ of $``$, with $`\text{deg}(𝒦)=f`$
* an element $`(^{})`$ in $`\text{Ext}^1(O_{D_i},𝒦)`$, such that $`()^{}`$ is sent to $`()`$ via the map (5.5)

We construct a parameter space for such data. Fix $`f`$ and $`i`$ integers such that $`e1f\frac{e}{2}`$ and $`ei1`$ and fix $`D_iD`$ a length $`i`$ $`0`$-cycle. Let $`q:X\text{Pic}^f(C)`$ be a projective bundle as defined in (2.1) and consider the morphism defined in (2.5):

$$\kappa :XZM_{\xi (D)}$$

If $`𝒜`$ is a Poincaré bundle on $`\text{Pic}^f(C)\times C`$ and $`\mu _1`$, $`\mu _2`$ are the two projections from $`X\times C`$, then consider the universal extension (2.2) on $`X\times C`$:

$$0\mu _1^{}O_X(1)q^{}𝒜𝒢q^{}(𝒜)^1\mu _2^{}\xi (D)0.$$

Define $`T`$ to be an irreducible component of the fiber of $`\kappa `$ at $``$. Consider the following relative extension sheaves on $`T`$:

$$^{}=xt_{T\times C|T}^1(\mu _2^{}O_{D_i},q^{}𝒜),=xt_{T\times C|T}^1(\mu _2^{}O_D,𝒢)$$

The sheaves $`^{}`$ and $``$ are locally free and $`(^{})()`$ is a closed subvariety. Note that since for any $`xT`$ we have $`𝒢_x`$ and $``$ is stable, it follows that $`𝒢\mu _2^{}𝒩`$, for $`𝒩`$ some line bundle from $`T`$.

Denote $`V=V_{D,E}`$, $`Y=Y_{D,E}`$. We have that $`()T\times (V)`$. The unstable locus $`Y`$ is given by the union (over all $`f`$, $`i`$, $`D_i`$ and irreducible components $`T`$) of the images of $`(^{})`$ in $`(V)`$ via the map

$$(^{})()T\times (V)(V)$$

It follows that all the irreducible components of $`Y`$ have dimension at most

$$\text{dim }(^{})=\text{dim }T+\text{dim }\text{Ext}^1(O_{D_i},𝒦)1=\text{dim }T+i1$$

If $``$ is general, then we have that either $`T`$ is empty, or that $`T`$ has dimension at most

$$\text{dim }X\text{dim }M_{\xi (D)}=2feg+2$$

It follows that all the irreducible components of $`Y`$ have codimension in $`(V)`$ at least

$$\text{dim }(V)(2feg+i+1)=2(ef)+(ei)+g22$$

For every integer $`f`$ such that $`(e1)f\frac{e}{2}`$, consider the morphism defined in (2.7):

$$\stackrel{~}{\kappa }:𝒳𝒵M_d$$

If $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }`$ is dominant, let $`M_{1e}^0M_{1e}^s`$ be the open set where the fibers of $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }`$ have dimension $`\text{dim }𝒳\text{dim }M_{1e}`$. If $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }`$ is not dominant, we let $`M_{1e}^0`$ be a dense open in the complement of the image of $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }`$. If we do this for all $`f`$, we end up with a dense open $`M_{1e}^0M_{1e}^s`$, so that if $`M_{1e}^0`$, then for any $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$, $``$ will be “general” in the sense of Lemma 5.4.

From now on, instead of $`S^{}`$ and $`W^{}`$ from (5.2) and (5.3), we will work with

$$S=S^{}\times _{M_{1e}}M_{1e}^0,W=W^{}\times _S^{}S$$

Let $`YW\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ be the closed subset of $`W`$, corresponding to those $`wW`$, for which the bundle $`𝒥_w`$ of (5.4) is not stable. Then we have the following Corollary to Lemma 5.4:

###### Corollary 5.5.

The subvariety $`YW\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, corresponding to unstable extensions in $`W\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, has all irreducible components of codimension at least $`2`$. If $`e=1`$, then $`Y=\mathrm{}`$.

Denote $`Z=Y(\mathrm{\Gamma }W)`$ and if $`Y_{D,}`$ is as in Lemma 5.4, we let

$$Z_{D,}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{D,}Y_{D,})$$

It follows from Corollary 5.5, that the universal bundle $`𝒥`$ of (5.4), when restricted to $`WZ`$, induces a morphism:

$$\eta :WZM$$
(5.6)
which sends an extension $`()`$ to the isomorphism class of the bundle $``$.

## 6. The nice component of the space of rational curves of even degree

Consider the morphism $`\eta :WZM`$ of (5.6). Denote by $`\eta _{D,}`$ the restriction of $`\eta `$ to the fiber of $`p:WS`$:

$$\eta _{D,}:(V_{D,})Z_{D,}M$$

Note that by Lemma 5.4, the codimension of $`Z_{D,}`$ in $`(V_{D,})`$ is at least $`2`$.

### 6.1. The degree of the line bundle $`\eta _{D,}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$

###### Lemma 6.1.

We have $`\eta _{D,}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }O(2e)`$.

###### Proof.

Consider the restriction of the universal sequence (5.4) to $`(V_{D,})\times C`$:

$$0\mu _2^{}(1)𝒥_{D,}\mu _2^{}O_D0$$

where $`𝒥_{D,}`$ is the restriction of the bundle $`𝒥`$ to $`(V_{D,})\times C`$. If we let $`\{H\}`$ be the class of a hyperplane in $`(V_{D,})`$, we have:

$$c_1(𝒥_{D,})=2\{H\}\times C+(V)\times c_1(\xi ),c_2(𝒥_{D,})=\{H\}\times (c_1(\xi )+D)$$

The result follows by applying Lemma 3.1. ∎

### 6.2. The nice component $``$ of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ for $`k=2e`$

###### Lemma 6.2.

Let $`f:^1M`$ be the composition

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{D,})Z_{D,}& \stackrel{\eta _{D,}}{}& M\end{array}$$
(6.1)
where $`h`$ is such that $`h^{}O(1)O(1)`$. Then $`f`$ is an unobstructed point of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$.

###### Proof.

Note that by Lemma 6.1, we have that $`f^{}\mathrm{\Theta }=O(k)`$, so $`f`$ is a point in $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$. Consider the exact sequence obtained by pulling back the universal extension (5.4) to $`^1\times C`$ by $`(h\times \text{id}_C)`$:

$$0O(1)OO_D0.$$
(6.2)
The bundle $``$ induces the morphism $`f:^1M`$. It follows that if $`\eta `$ is the generic point of $`C`$, then $`_\eta O(1)O(1)`$. From the Lemma 3.4, it follows that $`f`$ is an unobstructed point in $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$. ∎

###### Theorem 6.3.

If $`k=2e`$ is an even positive integer, there is an irreducible component $``$ of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, having the expected dimension $`2k+3g3`$, with the following properties:

* A general point $`f`$ is unobstructed and it is obtained as a composition:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{D,})Z_{D,}& \stackrel{\eta _{D,}}{}& M\end{array}$$

where $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$, $`M_{1e}^s`$ and $`h`$ is a morphism such that $`h^{}O(1)O(1)`$
* The MRC fibration of $``$ is given by a rational map:

$$\text{Pic}^e(C)$$

which sends a point $`f`$ as in $`i)`$ to $`O(D)\text{Pic}^e(C)`$. The map is dominant if and only if $`eg`$.

###### Proof.

We follow the idea of the proof of Theorem 3.5.

Let $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,WZ)`$ be the relative Hilbert scheme morphisms $`^1WZ`$ that are contained in some fiber of $`p:WS`$ and have degree $`1`$ with respect to the relatively ample line bundle $`O_W(1)`$. There is a canonical morphism:

$$\sigma :\text{Hom}_1(^1,WZ)S$$
(6.3)
whose fibers are the smooth, irreducible varieties $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,(V_{D,})Z_{D,})`$. They have dimension $`(4e1)`$. If we let $`N=\text{dim }\text{PGL}(r)+e1`$, we have:

$$\text{dim }\text{Hom}_1(^1,W)=\text{dim }S+(4e1)=(2k+3g3)+N$$

We have that $`\eta :WZM`$ induces a morphism

$$\varphi :\text{Hom}_1(^1,WZ)\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)$$
(6.4)
We prove that the general fiber of $`\varphi `$ is $`N`$-dimensional and rational. Let $`h`$ and $`h^{}`$ be two morphisms $`^1WZ`$ such that $`\eta h=\eta h^{}`$. Assume that $`h`$, respectively $`h^{}`$, have image in some $`(V_{D,})`$, respectively in $`(V_{D^{},^{}})`$. We have that the following compositions are equal:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{D,})Z_{D,}& \stackrel{\eta _{D,}}{}& M\text{and}^1& \stackrel{h^{}}{}& (V_{D,})Z_{D,}& \stackrel{\eta _{D,}}{}& M\end{array}$$

As in (6.2) we have exact sequences on $`^1\times C`$:

$$0O(1)OO_D0.$$
(6.5)
$$0O(1)^{}^{}OO_D^{}0.$$
(6.6)
Since $``$ and $`^{}`$ induce the same morphism $`^1M`$, there is an integer $`m`$ such that $`^{}p_1^{}O(m)`$ (without loss of generality, we may assume $`m0`$). It follows that there is a commutative diagram:

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccc}0& & O(1)& & & & OO_D& & 0\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 0& & O(1m)^{}& & ^{}(m)& & O(m)O_D^{}& & 0\end{array}$$
(6.7)
Since a surjective morphism $`O_DO_D`$ is an isomorphism, it follows that all the vertical arrows in (6.7) are isomorphisms. Hence, $`m=0`$, $`^{}`$ and $`^{}`$. But the automorphisms of a stable bundle $``$ are given by multiplication by scalars; it follows that the two extensions (6.5) and (6.6) are in the same orbit of the action of $`\text{Aut }(O_D)`$ on $`V_{D,}`$. Moreover, the maps $`h`$ and $`h^{}`$ are in the same orbit of the induced action of $`\text{Aut }(O_D)`$ on $`\text{Hom}_1(^1,(V_{D,}))`$. It follows that the fiber of $`\psi `$ containing $`h`$ has dimension $`N=\text{dim }\text{PGL}(r)+e1`$ and it is a rational variety.

Let $``$ be the closure of the image of $`\varphi `$, with the reduced structure. We have that $``$ is an irreducible closed subvariety of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, which has the expected dimension $`2k+3g3`$. By Lemma 6.2, a general point $`f`$ is unobstructed. It follows that $``$ is the unique irreducible component of $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ containing the point $`f`$. This proves i).

For ii), consider the morphism $`\sigma :\text{Hom}_1(^1,WZ)S`$. Let $`\pi :S\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ be the canonical morphism and let $`\theta =\pi \sigma `$. We claim that $`\theta `$ gives the MRC fibration

$$\theta :\text{Hom}_1(^1,WZ)\text{Pic}^e(C)$$

It is enough to prove that the fibers of $`\theta `$ are rationally connected. Since the fibers of $`\sigma `$ are rational, using \[GrHaSt\], it is enough to prove that the fibers of $`\pi `$ are rationally connected.

Let $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$. Then the fiber of $`\pi `$ at the point $`O_C(D)\text{Pic}^e(C)`$ is isomorphic to

$$\tau ^1(M_{\xi (D)}^s)\times (H^0(C,O(D))$$

The moduli spaces $`M_{\xi (D)}`$ are unirational. As the fibers of $`\tau `$ over the stable locus are isomorphic to $`\text{PGL}(r)`$, it follows that the fibers of $`\pi `$ are rationally connected.

Consider the morphism $`\varphi :\text{Hom}_1(^1,WZ)`$. Since the general fiber of $`\varphi `$ is rationally connected, it follows that $`\theta `$ induces a morphism which gives the MRC fibration of $``$:

$$\rho :\text{Pic}^e(C)$$

### Remark

If $`n1`$ is an integer, we let $`k=2en`$. Using the same arguments as in the proof of Theorem 3.5, one can still prove that there is a morphism:

$$\varphi :\text{Hom}_n(^1,WZ)\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)$$

It follows that there are irreducible subvarieties $`𝒩(e,n)\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$, such that a general point $`f𝒩(e,n)`$ is obtained as a composition

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}^1& \stackrel{h}{}& (V_{D,})Z_{D,}& \stackrel{\eta _{D,}}{}& M\end{array}$$
(6.8)
where $`h`$ is a morphism such that $`h^{}O(1)O(n)`$.

As in the proof of Theorem 3.5, one can compute the dimensions of the subvarieties $`𝒩(e,n)`$ and find that, if $`n>1`$, these dimensions are strictly smaller than the expected dimension $`2k+3g3`$, so they cannot form irreducible components. Note that for $`n=1`$ the subvariety $`𝒩(k,1)`$ is the nice component $``$.

### 6.3. Geometric interpretation

Let $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$ and $`M_{\xi (D)}`$ and denote $`V=V_{D,}`$, $`Z=Z_{D,}`$. Assume that $`D`$ consists of distinct points $`p_1,\mathrm{},p_e`$. We let $`V_i=\text{Ext}^1(O_{p_i},)`$ and consider the lines $`L_i=(V_i)`$ in $`(V)`$. Let $`l`$ be a line in $`(V)Z`$. By projecting from the linear span of all the lines other than $`L_i`$, we obtain isomorphisms $`lL_i`$, that determine a rational normal scroll $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(V)`$. Then $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^1\times ^{e1}`$ and the fibers of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ over $`^1`$ intersect the lines $`L_i`$ exactly once and $`l`$ is a section of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^1`$.

Consider the action of $`\text{Aut }(O_D)`$ on the space of lines in $`(V)Z`$. Then the orbit containing the line $`l`$ is given by the sections of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^1`$. Note that they form an $`(e1)`$-dimensional family.

## 7. Free rational curves of even degree

###### Lemma 7.1.

A morphism $`f`$ which is a composition as in (6.1) is a free curve.

###### Proof.

We follow the same arguments as in Lemma 4.1. The morphism $`f`$ is induced by a vector bundle $``$ on $`^1\times C`$, which sits in an exact sequence:

$$0O(1)OO_D0$$
(7.1)
Let $`𝒯=\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(^{})`$ and recall that $`𝒯O^gf^{}T_M`$. We prove that $`𝒯`$ is non-negative.

Denote

$$𝒮^{}=(O(1)^{})𝒮^{\prime \prime }=(OO_D)$$

By tensoring (7.1) with $`O(1)^{}`$, respectively with $`OO_D`$, we get exact sequences:

$$0O(^{})𝒮^{}O(1)(^{}O_D)0$$
(7.2)
$$0OO_DO(1)(O_D)𝒮^{\prime \prime }OO_D0$$
(7.3)
Note that from (7.3) it follows that

$$𝒮^{\prime \prime }(O(2)O)O_D$$
(7.4)
This implies that $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })O(2)^eO^e`$ and $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{\prime \prime })=0`$.

Note that $`h^0(C,^{}O_D)=2e`$ and $`h^1(C,^{}O_D)=0`$. The long exact sequence coming from applying $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ to (7.2) has the form:

$$\begin{array}{c}0O\text{H}^0(C,^{})p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})O(1)^{2e}\\ O\text{H}^1(C,^{})\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})0\end{array}$$
(7.5)
It follows from (7.5) that the sheaves $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})`$ and $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})`$ are locally free and that $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})`$ is non-negative.

By dualizing (7.1) and tensoring with $``$, we get an exact sequence:

$$0^{}𝒮^{}𝒮^{\prime \prime }0$$
(7.6)
Applying $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ to (7.6) and using that $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(^{})O`$ (and (7.4)), we have a sequence

$$0Op_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})O(2)^eO^e𝒯\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})0$$
(7.7)
As $`\text{R}^1p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(𝒮^{})`$ is non-negative, it follows from (7.7) that $`𝒯`$ is non-negative. ∎

###### Corollary 7.2.

Let $`k`$ be an even integer and let $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ be the nice component. If $`k`$ is sufficiently large, a general $`f`$ is a very free curve.

###### Proof.

We make a similar argument as in the odd degree case. Let $`k=2e`$ and let $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$, $`M_{\xi (D)}`$. Using Lemma 7.3, if $`e`$ is sufficiently large, the morphism

$$\eta _{D,}:(V_{D,})Z_{D,}M$$

is dominant for general $``$ and $`D`$. The result now follows from Lemma 4.3, using the same argument as in the odd degree case, see Corollary 4.2 iii). ∎

###### Lemma 7.3.

If $`e`$ is sufficiently large, the morphism

$$\eta _{D,}:(V_{D,})Z_{D,}M$$

is dominant, for general $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$ and $`M_{\xi (D)}`$.

###### Proof.

Recall that if $`\zeta `$ is a line bundle on $`C`$, we denote by $`M_\zeta `$ the moduli space of semistable, rank $`2`$ vector bundles on $`C`$, with determinant $`\zeta `$.

To prove the lemma, note that it is enough to prove the following: if $`\xi `$ and $`\zeta `$ are line bundles of degrees $`1`$, respectively $`(1e)`$, for $`e`$ sufficiently large, the determinant map

$$\text{Hom}(,^{})\text{Hom}(^2(),^2(^{}))\text{H}^0(\xi \zeta ^1)$$
(7.8)
is dominant for $`(,^{})`$ general in $`M_\zeta \times M_\xi `$. This is because if $`h:^{}`$ is an injective morphism, that maps by the determinant map (7.8) to a section in $`\text{H}^0(\xi \zeta ^1)`$ whose divisor of zeros is an effective divisor $`D\text{Sym}^e(C)`$, then we have $`\text{coker }(h)O_D`$. Hence, $`^{}`$ is in the image of the map $`\eta _{D,}`$.

We prove the statement by showing that if $``$ and $`^{}`$ are some well-chosen direct sums of line bundles on $`C`$, the determinant map is surjective. By deforming $``$ and $`^{}`$ to stable vector bundles, the general statement follows. Note that if $`e`$ is sufficiently large, we have

$$\text{h}^0(^{}^{})=\chi (^{}^{})=2e+44g$$
(7.9)
for any $`M_\zeta `$, $`^{}M_\xi `$. This is because there are no nonzero morphisms $`^{}K_C`$ if $`e`$ is sufficiently large. Otherwise, such a morphism should factor through a line bundle, which would then lead to a contradiction of the stability of $``$ and $`^{}`$. It follows that

$$\text{H}^0(_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{}K_C)\text{Hom}(^{},K_C)=0$$

which then implies (7.9).

Let $`pC`$ and let $`\eta \text{Pic}^0(C)`$ such that $`\eta ^2\xi (p)`$. Let $`d`$ be an integer such that $`(e1)d(\frac{e}{2}+g)`$ and let $``$ be a line bundle on $`C`$ of degree $`d`$. Let $`=\zeta ^1\xi ^1(p)`$ and we consider the following rank $`2`$ vector bundles:

$$=(^1\eta )(^1\eta ),^{}=\eta \eta (p)$$

There is an isomorphism

$$\text{H}^0(^{}^{})\text{H}^0()\text{H}^0()\text{H}^0((p))\text{H}^0((p))$$

The determinant map sends an element $`(s,t,s^{},t^{})`$ to the element $`(st^{}s^{}t)\text{H}^0((p))`$, where $`s\text{H}^0()`$, $`t\text{H}^0()`$, $`s^{}\text{H}^0((p))`$, $`t^{}\text{H}^0((p))`$. We prove this map is surjective.

By the base-point-free pencil trick (see \[ACGH\], III.3), if we fix $`t_1^{}`$ and $`t_2^{}`$ sections in $`\text{H}^0((p))`$ that do not have a common zero, then any section in $`\text{H}^0((p))`$ can be written as $`t_1^{}s_1t_2^{}s_2`$, for some $`s_1,s_2`$ sections in $`\text{H}^0()`$, provided that $`H^1(^1(p))=0`$. Note that our choice of $`d`$ was exactly so that we have this vanishing. Note that we may choose $`t_2^{}`$ to be of the form $`rt`$, where $`r`$ is a non-zero element in $`\text{H}^0(O(p))`$ and $`t\text{H}^0()`$. Then the element $`(s_1,t,rs_2,t_1^{})`$ will map by the determinant map to $`t_1^{}s_1t_2^{}s_2`$. We have proved that the determinant map is surjective and the lemma follows. ∎

Note that by Lemma 5.3, the fibers of the morphism $`\eta _{D,}`$ have dimension at least $`(e1)`$. It follows that the condition $`e(3g3)`$ is necessary for the morphism $`\eta _{D,}`$ to be dominant. At best, the previous method would only give the bound $`k(6g6)`$ for the curves on $`M`$ in the nice component (of even degree) to be very free. We may improve this bound by producing very free rational curves of even degree as deformations of reducible curves which are unions of two free curves of odd degree, intersecting at a point, of which at least one is very free. (Using a fact that we prove in \[C2\], namely that all the irreducible components other than the nice component and the almost nice component are obstructed, it follows that any very free curves will have to be in the nice component.)

## 8. Example – the genus $`2`$ case

If $`g=2`$, recall that $`M`$ is isomorphic to a complete intersection of two quadrics in $`^5`$.

For any $`k1`$, the space $`\text{Hom}_k(^1,M)`$ has two irreducible components of the expected dimension $`2k+3`$:

* the nice component $``$, whose general element is a is very free if $`k`$ is sufficiently large
* the almost nice component $`^{}`$, whose general element is a morphism $`f:^1M`$ which is $`k`$-to-$`1`$ onto a line in $`M`$

(The two components are the same if $`k=1`$.) The MRC fibration of both components is given by a rational map to $`J(C)`$, which is dominant for all $`k`$, except $`k=2`$.


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# Dissociation cross sections of ground-state and excited charmonia with light mesons in the quark model

## I Introduction

The interactions of mesons in systems containing both light and heavy quarks have long been of interest to hadron physicists. For example, some models predict that the open-charm $`D`$ and $`\overline{D}`$ mesons have sufficiently attractive residual strong interactions with nucleons to form “charmed nuclei” Bro90 ; charm\_nuclei . Charmed hadron bound states may exist in other systems as well; Novikov et al. long ago speculated that the nominal 33S1 $`c\overline{c}`$ state $`\psi (4040)`$ might actually be a quasinuclear “molecule” bound state of a $`D^{}\overline{D}^{}`$ pair Nov78 . Several quark model studies have shown that $`Q^2\overline{q}^2`$ mesons should exist for sufficiently large heavy-quark mass $`m_Q`$ (for a recent review see Richard Ric00 ). In a recent “pedagogical” application, the $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$ limit of the $`Q^2\overline{q}^2`$ heavy-light system (the so-called $``$ system) has been used as a theoretical laboratory for the study of nuclear forces, and nuclear potential energy curves have been derived using the nonrelativistic quark model Bar99  and lattice gauge theory (LGT) Mic99 .

Recently, further interest in the interactions of light- and heavy-quark mesons has arisen in the context of heavy-ion collisions and the search for the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). One signature proposed for the identification of a QGP Mat86  is the suppression of the rate of formation of the $`J/\psi `$ and other $`c\overline{c}`$ bound states. The long-ranged linear confining potential between a $`c\overline{c}`$ pair would purportedly be screened by a QGP, so a $`c\overline{c}`$ pair produced in the collision would be more likely to separate than to populate bound $`c\overline{c}`$ resonances.

Direct experimental confirmation of such a suppression can be detected for example through the observation of lepton pairs from the decay $`J/\psi \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$. The simplest interpretation of an observed $`J/\psi \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ signal would be to assume that all $`J/\psi `$ mesons survive until they decay outside the interaction region. However, if dissociation reactions such as $`\pi +J/\psi D^{}\overline{D}`$ and $`\rho +J/\psi D\overline{D}`$ are important, the interpretation of the experiment is more complicated; a weak $`J/\psi `$ signal might simply be due to dissociation through such “comover absorption” processes. The actual size of these low-energy charmonium dissociation cross sections is currently very controversial, and their evaluation is the subject of this paper.

## II Approaches

A very wide range of theoretical estimates of low-energy charmonium dissociation cross sections has been reported in the literature, largely due to different assumptions for the dominant scattering mechanisms. We will briefly review the three main approaches used before presenting new results from our quark model calculations.

### II.1 Quark Interchange

Quark model calculations of charmonium - light hadron cross sections were first reported by Martins, Blaschke and Quack Mar95 , who used a quark-interchange model Bar92  to treat $`\pi +J/\psi `$ collisions. This reference used standard quark model one gluon exchange (OGE) forces (spin-spin hyperfine and color Coulomb), augmented by a color-independent confining force that was assumed to act only between $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs (no $`qq`$ or $`\overline{q}\overline{q}`$ anti-confining interaction). Since the color Coulomb terms experience destructive interference between diagrams (due to color factors) and the large mass of the charm quark makes the hyperfine term rather weak, Martins et al. concluded that OGE forces alone give rather small cross sections; they estimated a cross section for $`\pi +J/\psi D^{}\overline{D}+h.c.+D^{}\overline{D}^{}`$ of $`0.3`$ mb at $`\sqrt{s}4.2`$ GeV. However their color-independent, $`q\overline{q}`$-only confining interaction had no color factor cancellation, and so gave a much larger peak cross section of $`7`$ mb near 4.1 GeV. These two exclusive processes ($`D^{}\overline{D}+h.c.`$ and $`D^{}\overline{D}^{}`$) were found to peak quite close to threshold, and then fell rapidly with increasing invariant mass due to suppression from the Gaussian meson wavefunctions assumed. (See Fig.2 of Ref.Mar95 .) Subsequently, Wong et al. Won00  applied the same approach to this problem, albeit with the conventional quark model $`\lambda \lambda `$ dependence for all terms in the interquark Hamiltonian, including the linear confining potential. The interaction terms assumed were again color Coulomb, spin-spin hyperfine and linear scalar confinement. The destructive interference between all diagrams, due to zero-sum color factors, led to a rather smaller $`\pi +J/\psi D^{}\overline{D}+h.c.+D^{}\overline{D}^{}`$ cross section, with a rather broad peak of roughly 1 mb near 4.1 GeV. Wong et al. also considered $`\pi +\psi ^{}`$, $`\rho +J/\psi `$ and $`\rho +\psi ^{}`$ dissociation, and found that these cross sections are much larger than $`\pi +J/\psi `$ near threshold, due to more favorable kinematics. The $`\rho +(c\overline{c})`$ processes are exothermic, and so actually diverge at threshold. Finally, Wong et al. studied the importance of the so-called “post-prior ambiguity” Sch68  in these calculations; the use of exact $`q\overline{q}`$ Hamiltonian wavefunctions in the present paper eliminates much of this systematic effect, but an important discrepancy remains due to the use of relativistic phase space and physical masses.

Shuryak and Teaney Shu98  gave a comparable rough estimate of $`1.2`$ mb for a low-energy $`\pi +J/\psi `$ cross section driven by the nonrelativistic quark model’s spin-spin interaction. Actually the specific process they considered, $`\pi +J/\psi \eta _c+\rho `$, is zero at Born order due to a vanishing color factor; color was not incorporated in their estimate.

### II.2 Meson Exchange

Charmonium - light hadron scattering can also take place through t-channel meson exchange. This mechanism was first discussed by Matinyan and Müller Mat98 , who were motivated to study $`\pi +J/\psi `$ inelastic scattering by the great discrepancy between the ca. 7 mb quark-model result of Martins et al. Mar95  and the very small low-energy cross sections found using the Peskin-Bhanot approach Kha94 . In the meson-exchange picture, charmonium dissociation reactions proceed through t-channel exchange of charmed mesons such as $`D`$ and $`D^{}`$. Matinyan and Müller assumed only $`D`$ exchange, and found mb-scale cross sections for the two low-energy dissociation processes $`\pi +J/\psi D^{}\overline{D}+h.c.`$ and $`\rho +J/\psi D^{}\overline{D}^{}`$.

This work has since been generalized to other t-channel exchanges and effective meson lagrangians. Lin, Ko and Zhang had previously proposed an SU(4) flavor symmetric vector-pseudoscalar meson effective lagrangian which they had applied to open-charm meson scattering Lin99 . Application of this same lagrangian to the $`\pi +J/\psi `$ dissociation reaction $`\pi +J/\psi D^{}\overline{D}+h.c.`$ gave a rather large cross section of $`2030`$ mb for $`\sqrt{s}=45`$ GeV Lin00 ; this was much larger than the $`D`$-exchange results of Matinyan and Müller, due to new three- and four-meson vertices in their effective lagrangian. Haglin Hag99  introduced a similar SU(4) symmetric meson lagrangian, and also found rather large cross sections of 5-10 mb for $`\sqrt{s}=4`$-$`6`$ GeV for many low energy charmonium dissociation reactions (see for example Fig.2 of Ref.Hag99 ). Subsequent work by Haglin and Gale Hag01  showed that the $`\pi +J/\psi `$ total inelastic cross section would reach an extremely large value of roughly 100 mb at $`\sqrt{s}=5`$ GeV, and $`\rho +J/\psi `$ a fantastic $`300`$ mb (with both still increasing) in this model, assuming pointlike hadron vertices. Similar large $`\pi +J/\psi `$ and $`\rho +J/\psi `$ cross sections have been reported by Oh, Song and Lee in pointlike meson exchange models Oh01 .

Navarra et al. Nav01  have recently questioned the assumption of flavor SU(4) symmetry; keeping only isospin symmetry, they find rather smaller cross sections for $`\pi +J/\psi D^{}\overline{D}+h.c.`$, ca. 20-25 mb at $`\sqrt{s}=5`$ GeV. They confirm that $`D^{}`$ exchange is much more important numerically in meson exchange models than the $`D`$ exchange originally assumed by Matinyan and Müller.

Of course it is also incorrect to assume pointlike hadron form factors. This has been noted both by Lin and Ko Lin00  and Haglin and Gale Hag01 . Both collaborations investigated the effect of assuming dipole forms for the effective three-meson vertices, and concluded that the predicted cross sections were greatly reduced (once again to typically 1-10 mb scales) with plausible vertex functions. (See for example Fig.4 of Ref.Lin00  and Fig.7 of Ref.Hag01 .) Accurate calculations of hadronic vertex functions are clearly of crucial importance for meson exchange models of charmonium dissociation. Some results for these form factors, obtained from QCD sum rules, have been published by Navarra et al. Nav00 ; Dur01 .

### II.3 Diffractive Model

A high-energy diffractive description of scattering of heavy quarkonia which was developed in 1979 by Peskin and Bhanot Pes79  has also been applied to the calculation of charmonium cross sections. It should be stressed that this method is only justified at high energies Pes00 , and then only for deeply-bound $`Q\overline{Q}`$ systems. It is in essence a gluon-sea model of high-energy diffractive scattering of physically small, high-mass Coulombic bound states by light hadrons. This model predicts reasonable mb-scale cross sections for $`J/\psi `$ hadronic cross sections at $`\sqrt{s}10`$ GeV Pes79 ; Kha94 ; Hue00 ; Arl01 . At low energies, however, this mechanism taken in isolation predicts extremely small (sub-$`\mu `$b) cross sections for $`J/\psi +\pi `$ and $`J/\psi +N`$ (see Fig.2 of Ref.Arl01 ). Presumably this means that the Peskin-Bhanot diffractive scattering mechanism is unimportant in the low-energy regime of greatest relevance to QGP searches, and other mechanisms such as quark interchange and meson exchange dominate $`c\overline{c}`$ strong interactions at these low energies. Indeed, a recent comparison LaSw  with lattice gauge computations shows that the operator product expansion breaks down for quark masses below roughly 10 GeV, and therefore the Peskin model is inapplicable to light and charmed hadronic physics.

Redlich et al. Red00  have argued that these diffractive cross sections are actually accurate at low energies, and if combined with vector dominance can account for the experimental $`\gamma NJ/\psi +N`$ open charm cross section, whereas the much larger meson-exchange result for $`\sigma (J/\psi +N\overline{D}+\mathrm{\Lambda }_c)`$ of Haglin Hag99  greatly exceeds the charm photoproduction measured in experiment, assuming vector dominance through the $`J/\psi `$. Hüfner et al. Hue00  however argue that this test is misleading, as the assumption of vector dominance through the $`J/\psi `$ alone is unrealistic for these processes. Since the $`\psi ^{}`$ is much closer to open charm threshold than the $`J/\psi `$, and is predicted to have larger dissociation cross sections to open charm, this is clearly a potential source of inaccuracy for any $`J/\psi `$-only vector dominance model.

Finally, QCD sum rule calculations have been performed Duraes:2002ux  which find a much larger low-energy cross section than the diffraction model Ref.Kha94 , and are in rough agreement with quark interchange results near threshold. Although there is approximate agreement of scale at low energies, the sum rule results find that the exclusive cross sections increase monotonically with energy. We believe that this is incompatible with hadronic form factors, which may require the inclusion of higher-dimensional operators in the sum rule calculations.

### II.4 Synopsis

Clearly the scale of charmonium dissociation cross sections at low energies remains an open question. Neither the experimental values nor the dominant scattering mechanisms have been convincingly established. In this currently rather obscure situation we can best proceed by deriving the predictions of the various models and searching for the least ambiguous comparisons with experiment, in as unbiased a manner as possible. Here we attempt to contribute to this research through a careful and detailed study of the predictions of one of the theoretical approaches, the quark interchange model.

## III Quark Interchange Model

The Born-order quark interchange model approximates hadron-hadron scattering as due to a single interaction of the standard quark-model interaction Hamiltonian $`H_I`$ between all constituent pairs in different hadrons Bar92 . In the current study we specialize to quark interactions that are simple potentials times spin and color factors,

$$H_I=\left(v_{Cou.}(r)\mathrm{I}+v_{conft.}(r)\mathrm{I}+v_{ss}(r)\stackrel{}{\mathrm{S}}_i\stackrel{}{\mathrm{S}}_j\right)T^aT^a.$$
(1)
The potentials are the standard quark model color Coulomb, linear confinement, and OGE spin-spin hyperfine terms, $`v_{Cou.}=\alpha _s/r`$, $`v_{conft.}=3br/4`$, $`v_{ss}=(8\pi \alpha _s/9m_im_j)\delta _\sigma (\stackrel{}{r})`$. (The Gaussian-regularized delta function is $`\delta _\sigma (\stackrel{}{r})=\sigma ^3/\pi ^{3/2}e^{\sigma ^2r^2}`$.)

Since this Hamiltonian is $`T^aT^a`$ in color space, quark line rearrangement is required to give nonzero scattering amplitudes between initial and final color-singlet hadrons at leading order in $`H_I`$. In the case of $`q\overline{q}`$ meson-meson scattering, this Born-order amplitude is given by the sum of the four “quark Born diagrams” shown in Fig.1. Each interaction in each diagram has an associated “signature” fermion permutation phase, color factor $`𝒞`$, spin matrix element $`𝒮`$, and a spatial overlap integral $``$. The evaluation of these various factors is discussed in detail in Ref.Bar92 . There are several simplifications in $`q\overline{q}`$ meson-meson scattering; the signature phase is always $`(1)`$, the flavor factor is diagram independent (and is unity here), and the color factors are $`(4/9)`$ (capture) and $`(+4/9)`$ (transfer). The full meson-meson $`T`$-matrix is given by the sum of color Coulomb, linear confinement and OGE spin-spin $`T`$-matrix elements, each of the form

$$T_{fi}^{ABCD}=(1)\{(4/9)𝒮_{C_1}+(4/9)𝒮_{C_2}$$

$$+(+4/9)𝒮_{T_1}+(+4/9)𝒮_{T_2}\}.$$
(2)
The angle brackets refer to the fact that the spin- and space-matrix elements do not always factor, and must in general be evaluated using a Clebsch-Gordon series. (This complication applies to spin-triplet, orbitally-excited mesons.) To evaluate the cross section for a given reaction at a given energy, we first evaluate the overlap integrals (given below) for each set of orbital magnetic quantum numbers, $`L_C,L_{Cz};L_D,L_{Dz}||L_A,L_{Az};L_B,L_{Bz}`$, using an adaptive Monte Carlo technique. In this method we fix $`\stackrel{}{A}=A\widehat{z}`$, so the overlap integrals are functions of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_C`$. (The magnitudes of $`A`$ and $`C`$ are determined from $`\sqrt{s}`$ and the physical meson masses using relativistic kinematics.) We then evaluate spherical harmonic moments $`c_{lm}=𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_CY_{lm}^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_C)(\mathrm{\Omega }_C)`$ of the overlap integrals, for each diagram and interaction, usually up to $`l=4`$. These spatial overlap integrals are then combined with the spin matrix elements $`S_C,S_{Cz};S_D,S_{Dz}|𝒮|S_A,S_{Az};S_B,S_{Bz}`$ of $`\mathrm{I}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{S}}_i\stackrel{}{\mathrm{S}}_j`$ in a Clebsch-Gordon series to form the full T-matrix element

$$T_{fi}^{ABCD}=J_C,J_{Cz};J_D,J_{Dz}|T|J_A,J_{Az};J_B,J_{Bz}.$$
(3)
Polarized cross sections are then given by

$$\sigma _{fi}^{ABCD}=\frac{4E_AE_BE_CE_D}{s}\frac{|\stackrel{}{P}_C|}{|\stackrel{}{P}_A|}𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_C|T_{fi}^{ABCD}|^2$$
(4)
and the unpolarized cross sections given here are determined by summing over magnetic quantum numbers as usual.

Since our $`H_I`$ consists of simple potentials, it is convenient to evaluate the overlap integrals in real space. (In most recent studies we evaluated these overlap integrals in momentum space, since they can be conveniently expressed as convolutions of the quark-quark momentum-space $`T`$-matrix with external meson wavefunctions; see for example Ref.Bar01 . The real-space overlap integrals, which may be obtained by introducing Fourier transforms in Eqs.(1-4) of Ref.Bar01  for the special case $`T_{fi}(\stackrel{}{q},\stackrel{}{p}_1,\stackrel{}{p}_2)=T_{fi}(\stackrel{}{q})`$, are

$$_{C_1}=\widehat{d}^9x\psi _A(\stackrel{}{x}_A)\psi _B(\stackrel{}{x}_B)\psi _C^{}(\stackrel{}{r})\psi _D^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_A+\stackrel{}{x}_B\stackrel{}{r})$$

$$v(r)\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}+\mu _C\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_A\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}\mu _D\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_B+i\stackrel{}{A}\stackrel{}{r}\right\}$$
(5)
$$_{C_2}=\widehat{d}^9x\psi _A(\stackrel{}{x}_A)\psi _B(\stackrel{}{x}_B)\psi _C^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_A+\stackrel{}{x}_B\stackrel{}{r})\psi _D^{}(\stackrel{}{r})$$

$$v(r)\mathrm{exp}\left\{+\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}\mu _C\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_A+\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}+\mu _D\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_Bi\stackrel{}{A}\stackrel{}{r}\right\}$$
(6)
$$_{T_1}=\widehat{d}^9x\psi _A(\stackrel{}{x}_A)\psi _B(\stackrel{}{x}_B)\psi _C^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_B+\stackrel{}{r})\psi _D^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_A\stackrel{}{r})$$

$$v(r)\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}+\mu _C\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_A+\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}+\mu _D\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_B+i\stackrel{}{A}\stackrel{}{r}\right\}$$
(7)
$$_{T_2}=\widehat{d}^9x\psi _A(\stackrel{}{x}_A)\psi _B(\stackrel{}{x}_B)\psi _C^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_B+\stackrel{}{r})\psi _D^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_A\stackrel{}{r})$$

$$v(r)\mathrm{exp}\left\{+\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}\mu _C\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_A\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}\mu _D\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_B+i\stackrel{}{A}\stackrel{}{r}\right\}$$
(8)
Where the measure is $`\widehat{d}^9xd^3rd^3x_Ad^3x_B/(2\pi )^3`$. We also introduced $`\mu 2m_q/(m_q+m_{\overline{q}})`$, and the identities $`\mu _A=\mu _B=1`$ and $`\mu _C+\mu _D=2`$ were used in deriving the overlap integrals; these relations are valid for processes of the type $`(n\overline{n})+(c\overline{c})(n\overline{c})+(c\overline{n})`$. The spatial wavefunctions above are the usual nonrelativistic quark potential model functions $`\psi (\stackrel{}{r}_{q\overline{q}})`$, normalized to $`d^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}r|\psi (\stackrel{}{r})|^2=1`$. The wavefunctions employed in this paper to evaluate these overlap integrals are numerically determined eigenfunctions of the full quark model Hamiltonian (with interaction given by Eq.(1)).

Since we use relativistic phase space and physical masses in evaluating our cross sections, there is a post-prior ambiguity in our results Sch68 . The overlap integrals given above are the “prior” form, in which the $`H_I`$ interaction takes place prior to rearrangement (Fig.1). In the “post” form, rearrangement followed by interaction, the scattering amplitude is given by a different set of spin matrix elements and overlap integrals. The post overlap integrals for the two capture diagrams are

$$_{C_1}^{post}=\widehat{d}^9x\psi _A(\stackrel{}{r})\psi _B(\stackrel{}{x}_C+\stackrel{}{x}_D\stackrel{}{r})\psi _C^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_C)\psi _D^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_D)$$

$$v(r)\mathrm{exp}\left\{+\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}+\mu _D\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_C\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}\mu _D\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_Di\stackrel{}{C}\stackrel{}{r}\right\}$$
(9)
$$_{C_2}^{post}=\widehat{d}^9x\psi _A(\stackrel{}{x}_C+\stackrel{}{x}_D\stackrel{}{r})\psi _B(\stackrel{}{r})\psi _C^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_C)\psi _D^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_D)$$

$$v(r)\mathrm{exp}\left\{+\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}\mu _C\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_C\frac{i}{2}\left(\stackrel{}{A}+\mu _C\stackrel{}{C}\right)\stackrel{}{x}_D+i\stackrel{}{C}\stackrel{}{r}\right\}$$
(10)
The transfer diagrams T1 and T2 (Fig.1) in post and prior formalisms are identical.

## IV Results

We have obtained Born-order quark-model results for i) dissociation cross sections of ground-state and excited charmonia into exclusive final states, and ii) total inelastic dissociation cross sections from the quark interchange mechanism. These results assume the quark interchange model described in the previous section. In the quark model Hamiltonian we assume a quark-gluon coupling constant $`\alpha _s=0.6`$, $`\sigma =0.9`$ GeV in the spin-spin hyperfine term and a string tension of $`b=0.16`$ in the linear confinement term. The light and charmed quark masses are taken to be 0.33 GeV and 1.6 GeV, respectively. These parameters can reproduce the $`I=2`$ $`\pi \pi `$ $`S`$-wave experimental phase shifts Bar01 , and are used in the following subsections to calculate charmonium dissociation cross sections which are average values obtained with “prior” and “post” forms. Cross sections for $`\pi ^+`$ scattering are presented in the following sections, other pion cross sections may be obtained assuming isospin symmetry.

### IV.1 Dissociation cross sections of excited charmonia

The principal mechanism for production of charmonia at small-$`x`$ in heavy ion collisions is thought to be the two-gluon fusion process $`ggc\overline{c}`$. One therefore expects $`J/\psi `$ production to be relatively weak, since the formation of C=($``$) states requires an additional gluon. The C=(+) mesons that have especially large $`gg`$ couplings, such as $`\eta _c`$, $`\chi _{c0}`$ and (to a lesser extent) $`\chi _{c2}`$ and their, as yet unidentified, radial excitations should be the dominant $`c\overline{c}`$ states produced. The relative strengths of $`c\overline{c}`$ couplings to glue are dramatically illustrated by the total widths of charmonia; the $`\eta _c`$ and $`\chi _{c0}`$ total widths, thought to be due mainly to $`c\overline{c}gg`$, are two orders of magnitude larger than the $`J/\psi `$ total width. Even the smaller $`\chi _{c2}`$ width is roughly $`20`$ times the $`J/\psi `$ width. This suggests that the production of charmonia from a quark gluon plasma is probably dominated by these C=(+) states rather than $`J/\psi `$, so the evolution of C=(+) states produced in a heavy-ion collision may be more important for understanding charm production than the $`J/\psi `$. The possibility that much of the $`J/\psi `$ signal originates from radiative transitions of parent $`\chi _{cJ}`$ states Schu ; Vogt99  also suggests that an understanding of the interactions of these C=(+) and excited $`c\overline{c}`$ states with light hadrons may be of great importance for simulations of heavy flavor production in heavy ion collisions.

It is straightforward to determine the dissociation cross sections of $`c\overline{c}`$ states other than the $`J/\psi `$ in the quark interchange model; one simply changes the external state attached to each of the four scattering diagrams of Fig.1. There is a technical complication with spin-triplet, orbitally-excited charmonia, since the spin and space degrees of freedom do not factor trivially in these states, unlike the scattering of S-wave mesons considered previously Won00 . Instead we must evaluate overlap integrals and spin matrix elements for each set of magnetic quantum numbers, which are then combined using the appropriate Clebsch-Gordon coefficients to give scattering amplitudes of mesons with definite $`J`$ (e.g. $`\pi +\chi _{cJ}\overline{D}D^{}`$).

### IV.2 Total $`\pi `$-charmonium dissociation cross sections from constituent interchange

We have evaluated the $`\pi J/\psi `$, $`\pi \psi ^{}`$, and $`\pi \chi _{cJ}`$ exclusive and total cross sections up to 4.5 GeV in the center of mass frame. The six final states with nonzero couplings in the model which are open in this regime are

$$\pi ^++c\overline{c}\overline{D}^0D^++c.c.$$
(11)
$$\pi ^++c\overline{c}\overline{D}^0D^+$$
(12)
$$\pi ^++c\overline{c}\overline{D}^0D_2^++c.c.$$
(13)
$$\pi ^++c\overline{c}\overline{D}^0D_1^+(^3P_1)+c.c.$$
(14)
$$\pi ^++c\overline{c}\overline{D}^0D_0^++c.c.$$
(15)
$$\pi ^++c\overline{c}\overline{D}^0D_1^+(^1P_1)+c.c.$$
(16)
The masses of the $`\overline{D}^0`$, $`D^+`$, $`\overline{D}^0`$, $`D^+`$ and $`D_2^+`$ mesons are taken from the 2002 PDG compilation Hagi02 . The $`D_0^+`$ vector meson is assumed to have a mass of 2.5 GeV. The spin-triplet state $`D_1^+(^3P_1)`$ and the spin-singlet state $`D_1^+(^1P_1)`$ mix to form the observed state $`D_1(2420)^+`$ and another unobserved state God91 . We assume masses for the $`D_1^+(^3P_1)`$ and $`D_1^+(^1P_1)`$ of 2.427 and 2.4 GeV, respectively.

The total inelastic cross sections to 4.5 GeV are shown in Figs.2-8. Results for exclusive reactions are as shown in the figures. The total cross section also includes charge conjugation final states where appropriate.

We note the following general features of the cross sections. All cross sections rise rapidly according to threshold kinematics and subsequently fall off at a scale of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ as expected for exclusive flavor exchange reactions. The $`\psi ^{}`$ cross sections are roughly ten times larger than corresponding $`\psi `$ cross sections. This is in accord with the ratio $`r_\psi ^{}/r_\psi 2`$ and the notion that cross sections increase with hadron size, although we stress that no simple scaling relationship exists in the quark interchange model. We note that the ratio of $`\psi ^{}`$ to $`\psi `$ is substantially smaller than the factor of 5000 predicted by the Peskin-Bhanot computation Pes79 . The $`\psi ^{}`$ cross sections tend to fall more rapidly than those for $`\psi `$. We suspect that this is due to the node in the $`\psi ^{}`$ radial wavefunction which manifests itself as a zero in the cross section about 200 MeV above threshold, causing the cross section to drop more rapidly than that for the ground state. Again, this feature can be expected to be quite general. Finally, we note that the $`\chi _{cJ}`$ cross sections grow with angular momentum $`J`$, which is naively expected due to the increasing number of $`J_z`$ states present.

A simple parameterization of these cross sections may prove useful for further numerical investigations. We have found that it is possible to fit many of our numerical cross sections with a simple functional form which is motivated by the expected threshold behavior with an exponential decay representing suppression due to flavor exchange:

$$\sigma (s)=\sigma _{max}\left(\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_{max}}\right)^p\mathrm{exp}\left(p(1ϵ/ϵ_{max})\right)$$
(17)
where $`ϵ=\sqrt{s}M_CM_D`$ and $`p=1/2+L_{min}^{CD}`$ for endothermic reactions and $`p=1/2+L_{min}^{CD}`$ for exothermic reactions. Here $`L_{min}`$ refers to the minimum possible value for the total orbital angular momentum of the final state consistent with conservation of angular momentum and parity. One expects this to dominate the threshold behavior of a given reaction. In practice we do find that many cross sections are well described by assuming that the orbital angular momentum in the initial channel is zero, however in general many waves contribute and it is more convenient to simply fit the value of $`p`$. We have found that this procedure describes all of our $`\pi +c\overline{c}`$ reactions quite well (however, this is not true for $`\rho +c\overline{c}`$). Results for the parameters $`p`$, $`\sigma _{max}`$, and $`ϵ_{max}`$ are presented in the Table I. The $`D_1^{}`$ and $`D_1`$ referred to in the column headings represent the $`D_1(^3P_1)`$ and $`D_1(^1P_1)`$ states respectively. All channels except $`D^{}D^{}`$ include charge conjugate reactions in the fit parameters.

## V Summary and Conclusions

Total charmonium dissociation cross sections have been computed up to 4.5 GeV in the center of mass of the $`\pi +c\overline{c}`$ system. The computations employ standard constituent quark model dynamics and all parameters are fixed by spectroscopic data. Exact numerical wavefunctions have been employed in the computations to minimize post-prior discrepancy. We have also presented results for positive charge conjugation $`\chi _{cJ}`$ dissociation. Gluon fusion arguments indicate that these states should be preferentially produced over negative charge conjugation states in small-$`x`$ heavy ion collisions.

It is of interest to speculate on the high energy limit of these quark model cross sections. It is apparent from the figures that the cross sections we find for channels that open at higher energies decrease in scale as the channel threshold increases. This is expected since the higher channels have a larger momentum mismatch with the initial state. Thus, exchanged quarks must probe the higher momentum region of the initial hadronic wavefunctions. This implies that the peaks of high mass channels will be approximately exponentially suppressed in Ecm, due to wavefunction suppression of the amplitudes. We note that final state hadronic wavefunctions do not affect this argument, since they are effectively averaged over all length scales near threshold. Furthermore, uncertainties due to relativistic effects or higher Fock state components will not change the argument as long as the momentum transfer probes the confinement region of the wavefunctions. Uncertainties in the structure of the pion arising from nonperturbative spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking effects are also unimportant here, since the well-understood charmonium wavefunctions alone suffice to give these general cross section features. Finally, we note that there is an additional suppression due to the nodal structure of highly excited wavefunctions.

Once the scattering energy is large enough to probe the Coulombic region of the hadronic wavefunction we expect to find a power-law suppression of the cross section peak rather than an exponential suppression. This power law is further weakened by the nodal suppression mentioned above. We stress that exclusive cross section peaks must still fall rapidly, even in this perturbative regime.

For two-to-two scattering the behavior of inclusive cross sections depends on the general behavior noted above and the density of states, which gives the rate at which new channels open with increasing $`\sqrt{s}`$. Quark models suggest that the density of $`q\overline{q}`$ resonances grows as a power of mass, thus the total dissociation cross sections must decrease roughly exponentially while in the confinement regime, and thereafter as a power in the perturbative regime. At very high energies the gluonic flux tube may be excited, leading to an exponential increase in the density of states H  since the flux tube contains infinitely many degrees of freedom. However, wavefunction suppression will again be exponential due to severe suppression of amplitudes containing multiply-excited string modes with ground state string configurations. Thus, for the case of two-body to two-body inclusive flavor-exchange scattering, nonperturbative effects cannot be ignored, and the cross section should decrease with increasing center of mass energy.

The constituent quark model provides a microscopic foundation for the exploration of hadronic interactions at low energy. Thus all relevant reactions may be computed with the addition of no new parameters. This stands in contrast to effective models which must introduce new couplings and form factors, and which suffer from confusion over the correct degrees of freedom and dynamics to be employed (there are no obvious symmetries to guide the construction of effective lagrangians in this energy regime). Sum rule and pQCD computations similarly suffer from the notoriously poor convergence properties of QCD (as exemplified in renormalon ambiguities) and from the difficulty in extracting observables from condensates. We regard the constituent quark model as the most reliable tool for the investigation of these issues and in future plan to apply it to charmonium-nucleon scattering and other reactions of interest to RHIC.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank our colleagues in the PHENIX Collaboration and at the University of Rostock for many discussions of heavy ion collision physics, and B.Müller for originally suggesting this as a research topic. ESS thanks D.Boyanovsky for discussions of theoretical descriptions of high energy cross sections. The work of Barnes, Wong and Xu was supported in part by the Division of Nuclear Physics, U. S. Department of Energy, and by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 managed by UT-Battelle, LLC. Swanson was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts DE-FG02-00ER41135 and DE-AC05-84ER40150 under which the Southeastern Universities Research Association operates the Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory. X.-M. Xu thanks the nuclear theory group and PHENIX group at ORNL for their kind hospitality, and acknowledges additional support from the CAS Knowledge Innovation Project No. KJCX2-SW-N02 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 10135030.