Carlsson's rank conjecture and a conjecture on square-zero upper triangular matrices.

Let $k$ be an algebraically closed field and $A$ the polynomial algebra in $r$ variables with coefficients in $k$. In case the characteristic of $k$ is $2$, Carlsson conjectured that for any $DG$-$A$-module $M$ of dimension $N$ as a free $A$-module, if the homology of $M$ is nontrivial and finite dimensional as a $k$-vector space, then $2^r\leq N$. Here we state a stronger conjecture about varieties of square-zero upper-triangular $N\times N$ matrices with entries in $A$. Using stratifications of these varieties via Borel orbits, we show that the stronger conjecture holds when $N 4$ and $r = 2$.