We present a new normal form for cubic surfaces that is well suited for p-adic geometry, as it reveals the intrinsic del Pezzo combinatorics of the 27 trees in the tropicalization. The new normal form is a polynomial with eight terms, written in moduli from the E6 hyperplane arrangement. If such a surface is tropically smooth then its 27 tropical lines are distinct. We focus on explicit computations, both symbolic and p-adic numerical.
A Cayley-Salmon equation for a smooth cubic surface $S$ in $\mathbb P^3$ is an expression of the form $l_1l_2l_3 - m_1m_2m_3 = 0$ such that the zero set is $S$ and $l_i$, $m_j$ are homogeneous linear forms. This expression was first used by Cayley and Salmon to study the incidence relations of the 27 lines on $S$. There are 120 essentially distinct Cayley-Salmon equations for $S$. In this note we give an exposition of a classical proof of this fact. We illustrate the explicit calculation to obtain these equations and we apply it to Clebsch surface and to the octanomial model. Finally we show t…
We prove the relation between the Hodge structure of the double cover of a nonsingular cubic surface branched along its Hessian and the Hodge structure of the triple cover of the ambient projective space branched along the cubic surface. And we introduce a method to study the infinitesimal variations of Hodge structure of the double cover of the cubic surface. Using these results, we compute the Néron-Severi lattices for the double cover of a generic cubic surface and the Fermat cubic surface.
Using equivariant geometry, we find a universal formula that computes the number of times a general cubic surface arises in a family. As applications, we show that the PGL(4) orbit closure of a generic cubic surface has degree 96120, and that a general cubic surface arises 42120 times as a hyperplane section of a general cubic 3-fold.
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 explore the connection between the rank of a polynomial and the singularities of its vanishing locus. We first describe the singularity of generic polynomials of fixed rank. We then focus on cubic surfaces. Cubic surfaces with isolated singularities are known to fall into 22 singularity types. We compute the rank of a cubic surface of each singularity type. This enables us to find the possible singular loci of a cubic surface of fixed rank. Finally, we study connections to the Hessian discriminant. We show that a cubic surface with singularities that are not ordinary double points lies on t…
The Eckardt hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^{19}$ parameterizes smooth cubic surfaces with an Eckardt point, which is a point common to three of the $27$ lines on a smooth cubic surface. We describe the cubic surfaces lying on the singular locus of the model of this hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^4$, obtained via restriction to the space of cubic surfaces possessing a so-called Sylvester form. We prove that inside the moduli of cubics, the singular locus corresponds to a reducible surface with two rational irreducible components intersecting along two rational curves. The two curves intersect in two …
We study relations in the Grothendieck ring of varieties which connect the Hilbert scheme of points on a cubic hypersurface $Y$ with a certain moduli space of twisted cubic curves on $Y$. These relations are generalizations of the "beautiful" $Y$-$F(Y)$ relation by Galkin and Shinder which connects $Y$ with the Hilbert scheme of two points on $Y$ and the Fano variety $F(Y)$ of lines on $Y$. We concentrate mostly on the case of cubic surfaces. The symmetries of $27$ lines on a smooth cubic surface give a lot of restrictions on possible forms of the relations.
In this paper, we continue the study of the relation between rational points of rational elliptic surfaces and plane curves. As an application, we give first examples of Zariski pairs of cubic-line arrangements that do not involve inflectional tangent lines.
We report on the computation of invariants, covariants, and contravariants of cubic surfaces. All algorithms are implemented in the computer algebra system magma.
We test numerically the refined Manin's conjecture about the asymptotics of points of bounded height on Fano varieties for some diagonal cubic surfaces.
We present a method to construct non-singular cubic surfaces over $\bbQ$ with a Galois invariant pair of Steiner trihedra. We start with cubic surfaces in a form generalizing that of A. Cayley and G. Salmon. For these, we develop an explicit version of Galois descent.
This is a note constructing a certain weight 4 automorphic form on the moduli space of cubic surfaces, posted here because it is referred to in math.AG/0002066
In this note we observe that the Cremona transformation in Oguiso's example of Cremona isomorphic but not projectively equivalent quartic K3 surfaces in three-dimensional projective space is the classical cubo-cubic transformation.
We construct nontrivial homomorphisms from the quasi group of some cubic surfaces over $\bbF_{\!p}$ into a group. We show experimentally that the homomorphisms constructed are the only possible ones and that there are no nontrivial homomorphisms in the other cases. Thereby, we follow the classification of cubic surfaces, due to A. Cayley.
We define and study a family of cubic surfaces in the projectivized tangent bundle over a four dimensional projective space associated to the root system D_5. The 27 lines are rational over the base and we determine the classifying map to the moduli space of marked cubic surfaces. This map has degree two and we use it to get short proofs for some results on the Chow group of the moduli space of marked cubic surfaces.
We give an algorithm to compute the zeta function of the Fano surface of lines of a smooth cubic threefold $F$ into $\mathbb{P}^4$ defined over a finite field. We obtain some examples of Fano surfaces with supersingular reduction.
Motivated by the relation between (twisted) K3 surfaces and special cubic fourfolds, we construct moduli spaces of polarized twisted K3 surfaces of any fixed degree and order. We do this by mimicking the construction of the moduli space of untwisted polarized K3 surfaces as a quotient of a bounded symmetric domain.
The projective linear group \(\pgl(\comp,4)\) acts on cubic surfaces, considered as points of $\mathbb{P}_{\mathbb{C}}^{19}$. We compute the degree of the $15$-dimensional projective variety given by the Zariski closure of the orbit of a general cubic surface. The result, 96120, is obtained using methods from numerical algebraic geometry.
We classify all possible automorphism groups of smooth cubic surfaces over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic. As an intermediate step we also classify automorphism groups of quartic del Pezzo surfaces. We show that the moduli space of smooth cubic surfaces is rational in every characteristic, determine the dimensions of the strata admitting each possible isomorphism class of automorphism group, and find explicit normal forms in each case. Finally, we completely characterize when a smooth cubic surface in positive characteristic, together with a group action, can be lift…
We classify finite groups acting by birational transformations of a non-trivial Severi--Brauer surface over a field of characteristc zero that are not conjugate to subgroups of the automorphism group. Also, we show that the automorphism group of a smooth cubic surface over a field $K$ of characteristic zero that has no $K$-points is abelian, and find a sharp bound for the Jordan constants of birational automorphism groups of such cubic surfaces.
Jordan showed that the incidence variety of a smooth cubic surface containing 27 lines has solvable Galois group over the incidence variety of a smooth cubic surface containing 3 skew lines. As noted by Harris, it follows that for any smooth cubic surface, there exist formulas for all 27 lines in terms of any 3 skew lines. In response to a question of Farb, we compute these formulas explicitly. We also discuss how these formulas relate to Schläfli's count of lines on real smooth cubic surfaces.
We present a collection of research questions on cubic surfaces in 3-space. These questions inspired a collection of papers to be published in a special issue of the journal Le Matematiche. This article serves as the introduction to that issue. The number of questions is meant to match the number of lines on a cubic surface. We end with a list of problems that are open.
In this paper we show that the moduli space of nodal cubic surfaces is isomorphic to a quotient of a 4-dimensional complex ball by an arithmetic subgroup of the unitary group. This complex ball uniformization uses the periods of certain K3 surfaces which are naturally associated to cubic surfaces. A similar uniformization is given for the covers of the moduli space corresponding to geometric markings of the Picard group or to the choice of a line on the surface. We also give a detailed description of the boundary components corresponding to singular surfaces.
We study the Picard variety of the Fano surface of nodal and mildly cuspidal cubic threefolds in arbitrary characteristic by relating divisors on the Fano surface to divisors on the symmetric product of a curve of genus 4.
We present some families of cubic hypersurfaces in $\mathbb P^5 (\mathbb C)$ containing a plane whose associated quadric bundle does not have a rational section.
This is a survey of the geometry of complex cubic fourfolds with a view toward rationality questions. Topics include classical constructions of rational examples, Hodge structures and special cubic fourfolds, associated K3 surfaces and their geometric interpretations, and connections with rationality and unirationality constructions.
Let $\Bbbk$ be any field of characteristic zero, $X$ be a cubic surface in $\mathbb{P}^3_{\Bbbk}$ and $G$ be a group acting on $X$. We show that if $X(\Bbbk) \ne \varnothing$ and $G$ is not trivial and not a group of order $3$ acting in a special way then the quotient surface $X / G$ is rational over $\Bbbk$. For the group $G$ of order $3$ we construct examples of both rational and nonrational quotients of both rational and nonrational $G$-minimal cubic surfaces over $\Bbbk$.
We present some applications of the Macaulay2 software package SpecialFanoFourfolds, a package for working with Hodge-special cubic fourfolds and Hodge-special Gushel--Mukai fourfolds. In particular, we show how to construct new examples of such fourfolds, some of which turn out to be rational. We also describe how to calculate K3 surfaces associated with cubic or Gushel-Mukai fourfolds, which relies on an explicit unirationality of some moduli spaces of K3 surfaces.
A Fano surface of a smooth cubic threefold X in P^4 parametrizes the lines on X. In this note, we prove that a Fano surface satisfies the Tate conjecture over a field of finite type over the prime field and characteristic not 2.
We give a canonical birational map between the moduli space of pfaffian vector bundles on a cubic surface and the space of complete pentahedra inscribed in the cubic surface. The universal situation is also considered, and we obtain a rationality result. As a by-product, we provide an explicit normal form for five general lines in $P_5$. Applications to the geometry of Palatini threefolds and Debarre-Voisin's Hyper-Kähler manifolds are also discussed.
We show that the vector of period ratios of a cubic surface is rational over $Q(ω)$, where $ω= \exp(2πi/3)$ if and only if the associate abelian variety is isogeneous to a product of Fermat elliptic curves. We also show how to construct cubic surfaces from a suitable totally real quintic number field $K_0$. The ring of rational endomorphisms of the associated abelian variety is $K = K_0(ω)$.
In this paper, we develop a new method to classify abelian automorphism groups of hypersurfaces. We use this method to classify (Theorem 4.2) abelian groups that admit a liftable action on a smooth cubic fourfold. A parallel result (Theorem 5.1) is obtained for quartic surfaces.
An explicit projective embedding of the moduli space of marked cubic surfaces is given. This embedding is equivariant under the Weyl group of type E6. The image is defined by a system of linear and cubic equations. To express the embedding in a most symmetric way, the target would be 79-dimensional, however the image lies in a 9-dimensional linear subspace.
We study the Fano surface S of the Fermat cubic threefold. We prove that S is a degree 81 abelian cover of the degree 5 del Pezzo surface and that the complement of the union of 12 disjoint elliptic curves on S is a ball quotient. The lattice of this ball quotient is related to the Deligne-Mostow lattice number 1.
Recall that the moduli space of smooth (that is, stable) cubic curves is isomorphic to the quotient of the upper half plane by the group of fractional linear transformations with integer coefficients. We establish a similar result for stable cubic surfaces: the moduli space is biholomorphic to a quotient of the compex 4-ball by an explict arithmetic group generated by complex reflections. This identification gives interesting structural information on the moduli space and allows one to locate the points in complex hyperbolic 4-space corresponding to cubic surfaces with symmetry, e.g., the Ferm…
A famous configuration of 27 lines on a non-singular cubic surface in $\mathbb P^3$ contains remarkable subconfigurations, and in particular the ones formed by six pairwise disjoint lines. We study such six-line configurations in the case of real cubic surfaces from topological viewpoint, as configurations of six disjoint lines in the real projective 3-space, and show that the condition that they lie on a cubic surface implies a very special property of {\it homogeneity}. This property distinguish them in the list of 11 deformation types of configurations formed by six disjoint lines in $\math…
The relation between the uniformizing equation of the complex hyperbolic structure on the moduli space of marked cubic surfaces and an Appell-Lauricella hypergeometric system in nine variables is clarified.
In 1991 Sørensen proposed a conjecture for the maximum number of points on the intersection of a surface of degree $d$ and a non-degenerate Hermitian surface in $\PP^3(\Fqt)$. The conjecture was proven to be true by Edoukou in the case when $d=2$. In this paper, we prove that the conjecture is true for $d=3$ and $q \ge 8$. We further determine the second highest number of rational points on the intersection of a cubic surface and a non-degenerate Hermitian surface. Finally, we classify all the cubic surfaces that admit the highest and second highest number of points in common with a non-degene…
This note contains a solution to the following problem: reconstruct the definition field and the equation of a projective cubic surface, using only combinatorial information about the set of its rational points. This information is encoded in two relations: collinearity and coplanarity of certain subsets of points. We solve this problem, assuming mild ``general position'' properties. This study is motivated by an attempt to address the Mordell--Weil problem for cubic surfaces using essentially model theoretic methods. However, the language of model theory is not used explicitly.
We give a complete deformation classification of real Zariski sextics, that is of generic apparent contours of nonsingular real cubic surfaces. As a by-product, we observe a certain "reversion" duality in the set of deformation classes of these sextics.
A quadric in $\R P^3$ cuts a curve of degree 6 on a cubic surface in $\R P^3$. The papers classifies the nonsingular curves cut in this way on non-singular cubic surfaces up to homeomorphism. Two issues new in the study related to the first part of the 16th Hilbert problem appear in this classification. One is the distribution of the components of the curve between the components of the non-connected cubic surface which turns out to depend on the patterns of arrangements (see Theorem 1). The other is presence of positive genus among the components of the complement and genus-related restrictio…
It has long been known that to a complex cubic surface or threefold one can canonically associate a principally polarized abelian variety. We give a construction which works for cubics over an arithmetic base. This answers, away from the prime 2, an old question of Deligne and a recent question of Kudla and Rapoport. We further classify the Mumford-Tate groups of the abelian varieties which arise, and give additional arithmetic applications.
The moduli space of cubic surfaces in complex projective space is known to be isomorphic to the quotient of the complex 4-ball by a certain arithmetic group. We apply Borcherds' techniques to construct automorphic forms for this group and show that these provide an embedding of the moduli space in 9-dimensional projective space. We also show that our automorphic forms directly encode the geometry of cubic surfaces, by showing that each of Cayley's invariants (certain cross-ratios) is simply a quotient of two of our automorphic forms.
Generalizing a recent construction of Yang and Yu, we study to what extent one can intersect Hassett's Noether-Lefschetz divisors $\mathcal{C}_d$ in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds $\mathcal{C}$. In particular, we exhibit arithmetic conditions on 20 indexes $d_1,\dots, d_{20}$ that assure that the divisors $\mathcal{C}_{d_1},\dots,\mathcal{C}_{d_{20}}$ all intersect one another. This allows us to produce examples of rational cubic fourfolds with an associated K3 surface with rank 20 Néron-Severi group, i.e. a singular K3 surface.
Smooth real cubic surfaces are birationally trivial (over $\R$) if and only if their real locus is connected or, equivalently, if and only if they have two skew real lines or two skew complex conjugate lines. In such a case a parametrization over the reals can be given by cubic polynomials. In this short note we provide a simple geometric method to obtain such parametrization based in an algorithm by I. Polo-Blanco and J. Top \cite{Po-Top}.
