Let X be a smooth projective curve of genus g>1 defined over an algebraically closed field k of characteristic p>0. Let M_X(r) be the moduli space of semi-stable rank r vector bundles with fixed trivial determinant. The relative Frobenius map F : X \to X_1 induces by pull-back a rational map V: M_{X_1}(r) \to M_X(r). We determine the equations of V in the following two cases (1) (g,r,p) = (2,2,2) and X non-ordinary with Hasse-Witt invariant equal to 1 (see math.AG/0005044 for the case X ordinary), and (2) (g,r,p) = (2,2,3). We also show, for any triple (g,r,p), the existence of base points of V, i.e., semi-stable bundles E such that F^* E is not semi-stable.
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…
In the context of K3 mirror symmetry, the Greene-Plesser orbifolding method constructs a family of K3 surfaces, the mirror of quartic hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}^3$, starting from a special one-parameter family of K3 varieties known as the quartic Dwork pencil. We show that certain K3 double covers obtained from the three-parameter family of quartic Kummer surfaces associated with a principally polarized abelian surface generalize the relation of the Dwork pencil and the quartic mirror family. Moreover, for the three-parameter family we compute a formula for the rational point-count of its ge…
Special types of quartic surfaces were much studied objects during the 1860s. Quartics were thus very much in the air when Sophus Lie and Felix Klein first met in Berlin in 1869. As this study shows, such surfaces played a major role in their subsequent work, much of which centered on linear and quadratic line complexes. This mutual interest led them to a number of new results on the quartic surfaces of Steiner, Plücker, and Kummer, as well as various types of ruled quartics studied earlier by Cremona. This paper, which draws on unpublished archival sources as well as published work from the p…
A generalized Kummer surface $X$ obtained as the quotient of an abelian surface by a symplectic automorphism of order 3 contains a $9\mathbf{A}_{2}$-configuration of $(-2)$-curves. Such a configuration plays the role of the $16\mathbf{A}_{1}$-configurations for usual Kummer surfaces. In this paper we construct $9$ other such $9\mathbf{A}_{2}$-configurations on the generalized Kummer surface associated to the double cover of the plane branched over the sextic dual curve of a cubic curve. The new $9\mathbf{A}_{2}$-configurations are obtained by taking the pullback of a certain configuration of $…
The main focus of this paper is on models of quartic surfaces, especially so-called complex surfaces. These are special fourth-degree surfaces that Julius Plücker introduced in the 1860s for visualizing the local structure of a quadratic line complex. Plücker's complex surfaces turned out to be closely related to Kummer surfaces and both of these types of quartics are examples of caustic surfaces, which arise in geometrical optics. Indeed, Kummer surfaces represent a natural generalization of the wave surface, first introduced by Augustin Fresnel to explain double refraction in biaxial crystal…
We study new families of curves that are suitable for efficiently parametrizing their moduli spaces. We explicitly construct such families for smooth plane quartics in order to determine unique representatives for the isomorphism classes of smooth plane quartics over finite fields. In this way, we can visualize the distributions of their traces of Frobenius. This leads to new observations on fluctuations with respect to the limiting symmetry imposed by the theory of Katz and Sarnak.
