Nonemptiness and smoothness of twisted Brill-Noether loci

Abstract

Let $V$ be a vector bundle over a smooth curve $C$. In this paper, we study twisted Brill--Noether loci parametrising stable bundles $E$ of rank $n$ and degree $e$ with the property that $h^0(C,V\otimes E)\ge k$. We prove that, under conditions similar to those of Teixidor i Bigas and of Mercat, the Brill-Noether loci are nonempty, and in many cases have a component which is generically smooth and of the expected dimension. Along the way, we prove the irreducibility of certain components of both twisted and "nontwisted" Brill--Noether loci. We describe the tangent cones to the twisted Brill-Noether loci. We end with an example of a general bundle over a general curve having positive-dimensional twisted Brill--Noether loci with negative expected dimension.

23 pages, typos corrected, new section "Tangent cones to twisted Brill-Noether loci"