We consider the class of singular double coverings $X \to \PP^3$ ramified in the degeneration locus $D$ of a family of 2-dimensional quadrics. These are precisely the quartic double solids constructed by Artin and Mumford as examples of unirational but nonrational conic bundles. With such quartic surface $D$ one can associate an Enriques surface $S$ which is the factor of the blowup of $D$ by a natural involution acting without fixed points (such Enriques surfaces are known as nodal Enriques surfaces or Reye congruences). We show that the nontrivial part of the derived category of coherent sheaves on this Enriques surface $S$ is equivalent to the nontrivial part of the derived category of a minimal resolution of singularities of $X$.
Let $S$ be the (minimal) Enriques surface obtained from the symmetric quartic surface $(\sum_{i<j}x_ix_j)^2=kx_1x_2x_3x_4$ in $\mathbb{P}^3$ with $k\neq 0,4,36$, by taking quotient of the Cremona action $(x_i) \mapsto (1/x_i)$. The automorphism group of $S$ is a semi-direct product of a free product $\mathcal{F}$ of four involutions and the symmetric group $\mathfrak{S}_4$. Up to action of $\mathcal{F}$, there are exactly $29$ elliptic pencils on $S$.
Let Y be a complex Enriques surface whose universal cover X is birational to a general quartic Hessian surface. Using the result on the automorphism group of X due to Dolgachev and Keum, we obtain a finite presentation of the automorphism group of Y. A fundamental domain of the action of the automorphism group on the nef cone of Y is described explicitly. The list of elliptic fibrations on Y and the list of combinations of rational double points that can appear on a surface birational to Y are presented. As an application, a set of generators of the automorphism group of the generic Enriques s…
We calculate the automorphism group of certain Enriques surfaces. The Enriques surfaces that we investigate include very general $n$-nodal Enriques surfaces and very general cuspidal Enriques surfaces. We also describe the action of the automorphism group on the set of smooth rational curves and on the set of elliptic fibrations.
We give conceptual proofs of some results on the automorphism group of an Enriques surface X, for which only computational proofs have been available. Namely, there is an obvious upper bound on the image of Aut(X) in the isometry group of X's numerical lattice, and we establish a lower bound for the image that is quite close to this upper bound. These results apply over any algebraically closed field, provided that X lacks nodal curves, or that all its nodal curves are (numerically) congruent to each other mod 2. In this generality these results were originally proven by Looijenga and Cossec-D…
We describe some one-dimensional moduli spaces of rank 2 Gieseker semistable sheaves on an Enriques surface improving earlier results of H. Kim. In case of a nodal Enriques surface the obtained moduli spaces are reducible for general polarizations. For unnodal Enriques surfaces we show how to reduce the study of moduli spaces of high even rank Gieseker semistable sheaves to low ranks. To prove this we use the method of K. Yoshioka who showed that in the odd rank one can reduce to rank 1.
The $\mathbb{Q}$-factoriality of a nodal quartic 3-fold implies its non-rationality. We prove that a nodal quartic 3-fold with at most 8 nodes is $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial, and we show that a nodal quartic 3-fold with 9 nodes is not $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial if and only if it contains a plane. However, there are non-rational non-$\mathbb{Q}$-factorial nodal quartic 3-folds in $\mathbb{P}^4$. In particular, we prove the non-rationality of a general non-$\mathbb{Q}$-factorial nodal quartic 3-fold that contains either a plane or a smooth del Pezzo surface of degree 4.
A nodal Enriques surface can have at most 8 nodes. We give an explicit description of Enriques surfaces with 8 nodes, showing that they are quotients of products of elliptic curves by a group isomorphic to $\Z_2^2$ or to $\Z_2^3$ acting freely in codimension 1. We use this result to show that if $S$ is a minimal surface of general type with $p_g=0$ such that the image of the bicanonical map is birational to an Enriques surface then $K^2_S=3$ and the bicanonical map is a morphism of degree 2.
We prove that there are no effective or anti-effective classes of square -1 or -2 arising from nodal curves on smooth algebraic surfaces by way of divisibility. This general fact has interesting applications to Enriques and K3 surfaces. The proof relies on specific properties of root lattices and their duals.
We explain a classical construction of a del Pezzo surface of degree d = 4 or 5 as a smooth order two congruence of lines in 3-space whose focal surface is a quartic surface $X_{20-d}$ with 20-d ordinary double points. We also show that $X_{15}$ can be realized as a hyperplane section of the Castelnuovo-Richmond-Igusa quartic hypersurface. This leads to the proof of rationality of the moduli space of 15-nodal quartic surfaces. We discuss some other birational models of $X_{15}$: quartic symmetroids, 5-nodal quartic surfaces, 10-nodal sextic surfaces in $P^4$ and nonsingular surfaces of degree …
We prove that two general Enriques surfaces defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic different from $2$ are isomorphic if their Kuznetsov components are equivalent. We apply the same techniques to give a new simple proof of a conjecture by Ingalls and Kuznetsov relating the derived categories of the blow-up of general Artin\textendash Mumford quartic double solids and of the associated Enriques surfaces. This paper originated from one of the problem sections at the workshop \emph{Semiorthogonal decompositions, stability conditions and sheaves of categories}, Université de T…
We study nodal complete intersection threefolds of type $(2,4)$ in $\PP^5$ which contain an Enriques surface in its Fano embedding. We completely determine Calabi-Yau birational models of a generic such threefold. These models have Hodge numbers $(h^{11},h^{12})=(2,32)$. We also describe Calabi-Yau varieties with Hodge numbers equal to $(2,26)$, $(23,5)$ and $(31,1)$. The last two pairs of Hodge numbers are, to the best of our knowledge, new.
We study the rationality problem for nodal quartic double solids. In particular, we prove that nodal quartic double solids with at most six singular points are irrational, and nodal quartic double solids with at least eleven singular points are rational.
We prove that the quartic threefolds defined by $$ \sum_{i=0}^{5}x_i=\sum_{i=0}^{5}x_i^4-t\left(\sum_{i=0}^{5}x_i^2\right)^2=0 $$ in $\mathbb{P}^5$ are rational for $t=\frac{1}{6}$ and $t=\frac{7}{10}$.
For an Enriques surface $S$, the non-degeneracy invariant $\mathrm{nd}(S)$ retains information on the elliptic fibrations of $S$ and its polarizations. In the current paper, we introduce a combinatorial version of the non-degeneracy invariant which depends on $S$ together with a configuration of smooth rational curves, and gives a lower bound for $\mathrm{nd}(S)$. We provide a SageMath code that computes this combinatorial invariant and we apply it in several examples. First we identify a new family of nodal Enriques surfaces satisfying $\mathrm{nd}(S)=10$ which are not general and with infini…
It is well-known that a nonsingular minimal cubic surface is birationally rigid; the group of its birational selfmaps is generated by biregular selfmaps and birational involutions such that all relations between the latter are implied by standard relations between reflections on an elliptic curve. It is also known that a factorial nodal quartic threefold is birationally rigid and its group of birational selfmaps is generated by biregular ones and certain birational involutions. We prove that all relations between these involutions are implied by standard relations on elliptic curves, complete …
We describe a set of generators and defining relations for the group of birational automorphisms of a general 15-nodal quartic surface in the complex projective 3-dimensional space.
In this short note, I point out that results of Ballico and Kool--Shende--Thomas together imply that on $K3$, Enriques, and Abelian surfaces, if $L$ is a very ample and $(2p_a(L)-2g-1)$-spanned line bundle, then the equigeneric Severi variety $V_{g}(L)$ of all curves in $|L|$ having genus $g$ is non-empty, irreducible, of the expected dimension, and its general member is a $(p_a(L)-g)$-nodal curve.
Costantini and Kappes gave an algebraic equation of the universal family over the Kenyon-Smillie (2,3,4)-Teichmüller curve. This equation gives rise to a family of projective plane quartic curves with three singular members. These singular curves are: (1) an integral nodal quartic, (2) the union of a line and a nodal cubic, and (3) a quadruple line. We determine the limit Weierstrass points on these singular curves.
We prove that a nodal quartic threefold $X$ containing no planes is $Q$-factorial provided that it has not more than 12 singular points, with the exception of a quartic with exactly 12 singularities containing a quadric surface. We give some geometrical constructions related to the latter quartic.
We describe, for various degenerations $S\to Δ$ of quartic $K3$ surfaces over the complex unit disk (e.g., to the union of four general planes, and to a general Kummer surface), the limits as $t\in Δ^*$ tends to 0 of the Severi varieties $V_δ(S_t)$, parametrizing irreducible $δ$-nodal plane sections of $S_t$. We give applications of this to (i) the counting of plane nodal curves through base points in special position, (ii) the irreducibility of Severi varieties of a general quartic surface, and (iii) the monodromy of the universal family of rational curves on quartic $K3$ surfaces.
We call a packing of hyperspheres in $n$ dimensions an Apollonian sphere packing if the spheres intersect tangentially or not at all; they fill the $n$-dimensional space; and every sphere in the packing is a member of a cluster of $n+2$ mutually tangent spheres (and a few more properties described herein). In this paper, we describe an Apollonian packing in eight dimensions that naturally arises from the study of generic nodal Enriques surfaces. The $E_7$, $E_8$ and Reye lattices play roles. We use the packing to generate an Apollonian packing in nine dimensions, and a cross section in seven d…
We consider the derived category of an Artin-Mumford quartic double solid blown-up at ten ordinary double points. We show that it has a semi-orthogonal decomposition containing the derived category of the Enriques surface of a Reye congruence. This answers affirmatively a conjecture by Ingalls and Kuznetsov.
We classify three-dimensional nodal Fano varieties that are double covers of smooth quadrics branched over intersections with quartics acted on by finite simple non-abelian groups, and study their rationality.
In this paper we first show that each Kummer quartic surface (a quartic surface $X$ with 16 singular points) is, in canonical coordinates, equal to its dual surface, and that the Gauss map induces a fixpoint free involution $γ$ on the minimal resolution $S$ of $X$. Then we study the corresponding Enriques surfaces $S/ γ$. We also describe in detail the remarkable properties of the most symmetric Kummer quartic, which we call the Cefalú quartic. We also investigate the Kummer quartic surfaces whose associated Abelian surface is isogenous to a product of elliptic curves through an isogeny with k…
The Hessian of a general cubic surface is a nodal quartic surface, hence its desingularisation is a K3 surface. We determine the transcendental lattice of the Hessian K3 surface for various cubic surfaces (with nodes and/or Eckardt points for example). Classical invariant theory shows that the moduli space of cubic surfaces is a weighted projective space. We describe the singular locus and some other subvarieties of the moduli space.
We study nodal del Pezzo 3-folds of degree $1$ (also known as double Veronese cones) with $28$ singularities, which is the maximal possible number of singularities for such varieties. We show that they are in one-to-one correspondence with smooth plane quartics and use this correspondence to study their automorphism groups. As an application, we find all $G$-birationally rigid varieties of this kind, and construct an infinite number of non-conjugate embeddings of the group $\mathfrak{S}_4$ into the space Cremona group.
