Reducible family of height three level algebras

Let $R=k[x_1,..., x_r]$ be the polynomial ring in $r$ variables over an infinite field $k$, and let $M$ be the maximal ideal of $R$. Here a \emph{level algebra} will be a graded Artinian quotient $A$ of $R$ having socle $Soc(A)=0:M$ in a single degree $j$. The Hilbert function $H(A)=(h_0,h_1,... ,h_j)$ gives the dimension $h_i=\dim_k A_i$ of each degree-$i$ graded piece of $A$ for $0\le i\le j$. The embedding dimension of $A$ is $h_1$, and the \emph{type} of $A$ is $\dim_k \Soc (A)$, here $h_j$. The family $\Levalg (H)$ of level algebra quotients of $R$ having Hilbert function $H$ forms an open subscheme of the family of graded algebras or, via Macaulay duality, of a Grassmannian. We show that for each of the Hilbert functions $H=H_1=(1,3,4,4)$ and $H=H_2=(1,3,6,8,9,3)$ the family $LevAlg (H)$ parametrizing level Artinian algebras of Hilbert function $H$ has several irreducible components. We show also that these examples each lift to points. However, in the first example, an irreducible Betti stratum for Artinian algebras becomes reducible when lifted to points. These were the first examples we obtained of multiple components for $\Levalg(H)$ in embedding dimension three. We also show that the second example is the first in an infinite sequence of examples of type three Hilbert functions $H(c)$ in which also the number of components of LevAlg(H) gets arbitrarily large. The first case where the phenomenon of multiple components can occur (i.e. the lowest embedding dimension and then the lowest type) is that of dimension three and type two. Examples of this first case have been obtained by the authors and also by J.-O. Kleppe.