We study stable curves of arithmetic genus 2 which admit two morphisms of finite degree d, resp. (d,d′), onto smooth elliptic curves, with particular attention to the case d prime.

Let X⊂Pr be an integral and non-degenerate variety. Set n:=dim(X). We prove that if the (k+n−1)-secant variety of X has (the expected) dimension (k+n−1)(n+1)−1<r and X is not uniruled by lines, then X is not k-weakly defective and hence the k-secant variety satisfies identifiability, i.e. a general element of it is in the linear span of a unique S⊂X with ♯(S)=k. We apply this result to many Segre-Veronese varieties and to the identifiability of Gaussian mixtures G1,d. If X is the Segre embedding of a multiprojective space we prove identifiability for the k-secant variety (assuming that the (k+n−1)-secant variety has dimension (k+n−1)(n+1)−1<r, this is a known result in many cases), beating several bounds on the identifiability of tensors.

Powersum varieties, also called varieties of sums of powers, have provided examples of interesting relations between varieties since their first appearance in the 19th century. One of the most useful tools to study them is apolarity, a notion originally related to the action of differential operators on the polynomial ring. In this work, we make explicit how one can see apolarity in terms of the Cox ring of a variety. In this way, powersum varieties are a special case of varieties of apolar schemes; we explicitly describe examples of such varieties in the case of two toric surfaces, when the Cox ring is particularly well-behaved.

It is known that if the special automorphism group SAut(X) of a quasiaffine variety X of dimension at least 2 acts transitively on X, then this action is infinitely transitive. In this paper we question whether this is the only possibility for the automorphism group Aut(X) to act infinitely transitively on X. We show that this is the case, provided X admits a nontrivial Ga or Gm-action. Moreover, 2-transitivity of the automorphism group implies infinite transitivity.

We study rationality properties of quadric surface bundles over the projective plane. We exhibit families of smooth projective complex fourfolds of this type over connected bases, containing both rational and non-rational fibers.