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.
For every smooth quartic threefold, we classify all pencils on it whose general element is an irreducible surface birational to a smooth surface of Kodaira dimension zero.
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 discuss the work of Corrado Segre on nodal cubic hypersurfaces with emphasis on the cases of 6-nodal and 10-nodal cubics. In particular, we discuss the Fano surface of lines and conic bundle structures on such threefolds. We review some of the current research in algebraic geometry related to Segre's work.
The quartic hypersurfaces in P^4 invariant under the standard representation of S_6 form a linear pencil. We prove that a general member of this pencil is not 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 $t=\frac{7}{10}$.
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 study the geometry and the period map of nodal complex prime Fano threefolds with index 1 and degree 10. We show that these threefolds are birationally isomorphic to Verra solids (hypersurfaces of bidegree $(2,2)$ in $ ¶^2\times ¶^2$). Using Verra's results on the period map for these solids and on the Prym map for double étale covers of plane sextic curves, we prove that the fiber of the period map for our nodal threefolds is birationally the union of two surfaces, for which we give several descriptions. This result is the analog in the nodal case of a result obtained in arXiv:0812.3670 fo…
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 the $\mathbb{Q}$-factoriality of a nodal hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^{4}$ of degree $n$ with at most ${\frac{(n-1)^{2}}{4}}$ nodes and the $\mathbb{Q}$-factoriality of a double cover of $\mathbb{P}^{3}$ branched over a nodal surface of degree $2r$ with at most ${\frac{(2r-1)r}{3}}$ nodes.
We study certain moduli spaces of stable vector bundles of rank two on cubic and quartic threefolds. In many cases under consideration, it turns out that the moduli space is complete and irreducible and a general member has vanishing intermediate cohomology. In one case, all except one component of the moduli space has such vector bundles.
We study threefolds fibred by mirror quartic K3 surfaces. We begin by showing that any family of such K3 surfaces is completely determined by a map from the base of the family to the moduli space of mirror quartic K3 surfaces. This is then used to give a complete explicit description of all Calabi-Yau threefolds fibred by mirror quartic K3 surfaces. We conclude by studying the properties of such Calabi-Yau threefolds, including their Hodge numbers and deformation theory.
In this paper we show that a nodal complete intersection threefold $X$ in $\mathbb{P}^{3+c}$ with defect, but without induced defect, has at least $\sum_{i\leq j} (d_i-1)(d_j-1)$ nodes, provided either $c=2$ or $d_c>\sum_{i=1}^{c-1} d_i$ holds.
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 construct two small resolutions of singularities of the Coble fourfold (the double cover of the four-dimensional projective space branched over the Igusa quartic). We use them to show that all $S_6$-invariant three-dimensional quartics are birational to conic bundles over the quintic del Pezzo surface with the discriminant curves from the Wiman-Edge pencil. As an application, we check that $S_6$-invariant three-dimensional quartics are unirational, obtain new proofs of rationality of four special quartics among them and irrationality of the others, and describe their Weil divisor class grou…
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 give a bound on the minimal number of singularities of a nodal projective complete intersection threefold which contains a smooth complete intersection surface that is not a Cartier divisor.
We study the mixed Hodge structure on the third homology group of a threefold which is the double cover of projective three-space ramified over a quartic surface with a double conic. We deal with the Torelli problem for such threefolds.
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 she…
In this paper, we prove a Clifford type inequality for the curve $X_{2,2,2,4}$, which is the intersection of a quartic and three general quadratics in $\mathbb{P}^5$. We thus prove a stronger Bogomolov-Gieseker inequality for characters of stable vector bundles and stable objects on $X_{2,4}$. Applying the scheme proposed by Bayer, Bertram, Macrì, Stellari and Toda, we can construct an open subset of Bridgeland stability conditions on $X_{2,4}$.
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 paper we study ACM vector bundles $\E$ of rank $k \geq 3$ on hypersurfaces $X_r \subset\Pj^4$ of degree $r \geq 1$. We consider here mainly the case of degree $r = 4$, which is the first unknown case in literature. Under some natural conditions for the bundle $\E$ we derive a list of possible Chern classes $(c_1,c_2,c_3)$ which may arise in the cases of rank $k=3$ and $k=4$, when $r=4$. For some cases among these we give the corresponding examples, the existence of all the other cases remaining under question.
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 study two rational Fano threefolds with an action of the icosahedral group $\mathfrak{A}_5$. The first one is the famous Burkhardt quartic threefold, and the second one is the double cover of the projective space branched in the Barth sextic surface. We prove that both of them are $\mathfrak{A}_5$-Fano varieties that are $\mathfrak{A}_5$-birationally superrigid. This gives two new embeddings of the group $\mathfrak{A}_5$ into the space Cremona group.
In this paper we classify nodal rational non-$\mathbb{Q}$-factorial del Pezzo threefolds of degree 2 which can be $G$-birationally rigid for some subgroup $G\subset \operatorname{Aut}(X)$.
We study twists of the Burkhardt quartic threefold over non-algebraically closed base fields of characteristic different from 2,3,5. We show they all admit quartic models in projective four-space. We identify a Galois-cohomological obstruction that measures if a given twist is birational to a moduli space of abelian varieties. This obstruction has implications for the rational points on these varieties. As a result, we see that all possible 3-level structures can be realized by abelian surfaces, whereas Kummer 3-level structures that group-theoretically may be admissible, may not be realizable…
The main purpose of this paper is to introduce a new approach to study families of nodal curves on projective threefolds. Precisely, given $X$ a smooth projective threefold, $\E$ a rank-two vector bundle on $X$, $L$ a very ample line bundle on $X$ and $k \geq 0$, $δ>0 $ integers and denoted by $V= {\V}_δ ({\E} \otimes L^{\otimes k})$ the subscheme of ${\Pp}(H^0({\E} \otimes L^{\otimes k}))$ parametrizing global sections of ${\E} \otimes L^{\otimes k}$ whose zero-loci are irreducible and $δ$-nodal curves on $X$, we present a new cohomological description of the tangent space $T_{[s]}({\V}_δ ({\…
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 prove that the general quartic double solid with $k\leq 7$ nodes does not admit a Chow theoretic decomposition of the diagonal, or equivalently has a nontrivial universal ${\rm CH}_0$ group. The same holds if we replace in this statement "Chow theoretic" by "cohomological". In particular, it is not stably rational. We also prove that the general quartic double solid with seven nodes does not admit a universal codimension 2 cycle parameterized by its intermediate Jacobian, and even does not admit a parametrization with rationally connected fibres of its Jacobian by a family of 1-cycles. This…
We investigate necessary conditions for Gorenstein projective varieties to admit semiorthogonal decompositions introduced by Kawamata, with main emphasis on threefolds with isolated compound $A_n$ singularities. We introduce obstructions coming from Algebraic $\mathrm{K}$-theory and translate them into the concept of maximal nonfactoriality. Using these obstructions we show that many classes of nodal threefolds do not admit Kawamata type semiorthogonal decompositions. These include nodal hypersurfaces and double solids, with the exception of a nodal quadric, and del Pezzo threefolds of degrees…
Let X be the blow-up of the three dimensional complex projective space along r general points of a smooth elliptic quartic curve B of P^3 and let L be any line bundle of X. The aim of this paper is to provide an explicit algorithm for determining the dimension of H^0(X,L).
Let $Z$ be the quotient of the Siegel modular threefold $\mathcal{A}^{\rm sa}(2,4,8)$ which has been studied by van Geemen and Nygaard. They gave an implication that some 6-tuple $F_Z$ of theta constants which is in turn known to be a Klingen type Eisenstein series of weight 3 should be related to a holomorphic differential $(2,0)$-form on $Z$. The variety $Z$ is birationally equivalent to the tangent cone of Fermat quartic surface in the title. In this paper we first compute the L-function of two smooth resolutions of $Z$. One of these, denoted by $W$, is a kind of Igusa compactification such…
Let X be a (possibly nodal) K-trivial threefold moving in a fixed ambient space P. Suppose X contains a continuous family of curves, all of whose members satisfy certain unobstructedness conditions in P. A formula is given for computing the corresponding virtual number of curves, that is, the number of curves on a generic deformation of X "contributed by" the continuous family on X.
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.
In the paper "The universal Kummer threefold", Q. Ren, S. Sam, G. Schrader, and B. Sturmfels (arXiv:1208.1229), conjectured equations for the universal Kummer variety in genus 3 case. Though, most of these equations are obtained from the Fourier-Jacobi expansion of relations among theta constants in genus 4, the more prominent one, Coble's quartic was obtained differently. The aim of the current paper is to show that Coble's quartic can be obtained as Fourier-Jacobi expansion of a relation among theta-constants in genus 4. We get also one more relation that could be in the ideal described in "…
We construct new subvarieties in the varieties of power sums for certain quartic hypersurfaces. This provides a generalization of Mukai's description of smooth prime Fano threefolds of genus twelve as the varieties of power sums for plane quartics. In fact, in our second paper, we show that these quartics are exactly the Scorza quartics associated to general pairs of trigonal curves and ineffective theta characteristics and this enables us to prove there the main cojecture of Dolgachev and Kanev.
