Varieties swept out by grassmannians of lines

Abstract

We classify complex projective varieties of dimension $2r\ge 8$ swept out by a family of codimension two grassmannians of lines $\mathbb{G}(1,r)$. They are either fibrations onto normal surfaces such that the general fibers are isomorphic to $\G(1,r)$ or the grassmannian $\mathbb{G}(1,r+1)$. The cases $r=2$ and $r=3$ are also considered in the more general context of varieties swept out by codimension two linear spaces or quadrics.