Irreducibility of the Gorenstein loci of Hilbert schemes via ray families

Abstract: We analyse the Gorenstein locus of the Hilbert scheme of $d$ points on $\mathbb{P}^n$ i.e. the open subscheme parameterising zero-dimensional Gorenstein subschemes of $\mathbb{P}^n$ of degree $d$. We give new sufficient criteria for smoothability and smoothness of points of the Gorenstein locus. In particular we prove that this locus is irreducible when $d\leq 13$ and find its components when $d = 14$. The proof is relatively self-contained and it does not rely on a computer algebra system. As a by--product, we give equations of the fourth secant variety to the $d$-th Veronese reembedding of $\mathbb{P}^n$ for $d\geq 4$.