Abstract
The primitive curves are the multiple curves that can be locally embedded in smooth surfaces (we will always suppose that the associated reduced curves are smooth). These curves have been defined and studied by C. Bănică and O. Forster in 1984. In 1995, D. Bayer and D. Eisenbud gave a complete description of the double curves. We give here a parametrization of primitive curves of arbitrary multiplicity. Let Zn = spec(ℂ[t]/(tn)). The curves of multiplicity n are obtained by taking an open cover (Ui) of a smooth curve C and by glueing schemes of type Ui × Zn using automorphisms of Uij × Zn that leave Uij invariant. This leads to the study of the sheaf of nonabelian groups Gn of automorphisms of C × Zn that leave the reduced curve invariant, and to the study of its first cohomology set. We prove also that in most cases it is the same to extend a primitive curve Cn of multiplicity n to one of multiplicity n + 1, and to extend the quasi locally free sheaf Dn of derivations of Cn to a rank 2 vector bundle on Cn.
© Walter de Gruyter