NORTHEASTERN U NIVERSITY
MATHEMATICS D EPARTMENT


Geometry-Algebra-Singularities-Combinatorics 
Seminar

 
Irreducibility of the variety of commuting nilpotent matrices
 

Roberta Basili

(Università di Perugia and
Northeastern University)

 

Northeastern University

511 Lake Hall

1:30 p.m., Monday, June 23, 2003

 
Abstract:  We give an elementary proof of the irreducibility of the variety of commuting pairs of nXn nilpotent matrices over an algebraically field k, when k is of characteristic zero, or charactersitic p greater or equal n/2.

    This also gives a proof of the irreducibility of the local Hilbert scheme of n points on a smooth algebraic surface over k, thanks to a model of this scheme due to H. Nakajima.