On the essential dimension of coherent sheaves

Abstract

We characterize all fields of definition for a given coherent sheaf over a projective scheme in terms of projective modules over a finite-dimensional endomorphism algebra. This yields general results on the essential dimension of such sheaves. Applying them to vector bundles over a smooth projective curve C, we obtain an upper bound for the essential dimension of their moduli stack. The upper bound is sharp if the conjecture of Colliot-Thélène, Karpenko and Merkurjev holds. We find that the genericity property proved for Deligne-Mumford stacks by Brosnan, Reichstein and Vistoli still holds for this Artin stack, unless the curve C is elliptic.

17 pages. v2: new counterexample to the genericity property in the elliptic curve case; the earlier Proposition 3.4 replaced by an argument which is still valid over non-perfect fields; exposition streamlined