Nagata's conjecture for plane curves through very general points

Let p1,,prp_1,\dots,p_r be rr very general points in P2\mathbb P^2. For an integral curve CP2C\subset\mathbb P^2, write multpi(C)\operatorname{mult}_{p_i}(C) for its multiplicity at pip_i. Equivalently, on the blow-up XP2X\to\mathbb P^2 at the points pip_i, let HH be the pull-back of a line and let EiE_i be the exceptional divisors; then dHi=1rmiEidH-\sum_{i=1}^r m_iE_i denotes the corresponding linear system. Nagata's conjecture. For every integral curve CP2C\subset\mathbb P^2, one has

degC>1ri=1rmultpi(C).\deg C>\frac{1}{\sqrt r}\sum_{i=1}^r\operatorname{mult}_{p_i}(C).

Equivalently, the linear system dHi=1rmiEi|dH-\sum_{i=1}^r m_iE_i| contains no integral curve for positive integers dd and mim_i satisfying

r1di=1rmi.\sqrt r\leq\frac{1}{d}\sum_{i=1}^r m_i.

Nagata's conjecture is a long-standing open problem concerning positivity and linear systems on blow-ups of P2\mathbb P^2 at very general points; it is closely related to questions about the positivity and generation of line bundles on these surfaces.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Daigo Ito and Noah Olander, “A derived category analogue of the Nakai–Moishezon criterion”, arXiv:2507.17681 (2025).

Additional references

16 papers in this index state this conjecture (2002–2025). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2408.15187, arXiv:2101.09762, arXiv:1905.03140, arXiv:1804.02306, arXiv:1707.00583, arXiv:1409.1736, arXiv:1310.6684, arXiv:1202.4370, arXiv:1110.0722, arXiv:0907.4151, arXiv:0907.4425, arXiv:math/0604363, and 3 more.

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