Degree of the 3-secant variety

Abstract

In this paper, we present a formula for the degree of the 3-secant variety of a nonsingular projective variety embedded by a 5-very ample line bundle. The formula is provided in terms of Segre classes of the tangent bundle of a given variety. We use the generalized version of double point formula to reduce the calculation into the case of the 2-secant variety. Due to the singularity of the 2-secant variety, we use secant bundle as a nonsingular birational model and compute multiplications of desired algebraic cycles.