Low rank orthogonal bundles and quadric fibrations

Abstract

Let $C$ be a curve and $V\to C$ an orthogonal vector bundle of rank $r$. For $r\le 6$, the structure of $V$ can be described using tensor, symmetric and exterior products of bundles of lower rank, essentially due to the existence of exceptional isomorphisms between $\mathrm{Spin}(r,\mathbb{C})$ and other groups for these $r$. We analyze these structures in detail, and in particular use them to describe moduli spaces of orthogonal bundles. Furthermore, the locus of isotropic vectors in $V$ defines a quadric subfibration $Q_V\subset \mathbb{P}V$. Using familiar results on quadrics of low dimension, we exhibit isomorphisms between isotropic Quot schemes of $V$ and certain ordinary Quot schemes of line subbundles. In particular, for $r\le 6$ this gives a method for enumerating the isotropic subbundles of maximal degree of a general $V$, when there are finitely many.