The characteristic numbers of smooth plane quartics are computed using intersection theory on a component of the moduli space of stable maps. This completes the verification of Zeuthen's prediction of characteristic numbers of smooth plane curves. A short sketch of a computation of the characteristic numbers of plane cubics is also given as an illustration.
We construct families of quartic and cubic hypersurfaces through a canonical curve, which are parametrized by an open subset in a Grassmannian and a Flag variety respectively. Using G. Kempf's cohomological obstruction theory, we show that these families cut out the canonical curve and that the quartics are birational (via a blowing-up of a linear subspace) to quadric bundles over the projective plane, whose Steinerian curve equals the canonical curve.
A very general surface of degree at least four in projective space of dimension three contains no curves other than intersections with surfaces. We find a formula for the degree of the locus of surfaces of degree at least five which contain some elliptic quartic curve. We also compute the degree of the locus of quartic surfaces containing an elliptic quartic curve, a case not covered by that formula.
There are thirteen types of singular points for irreducible real quartic curves and seventeen types of singular points for reducible real quartic curves. This classification is originally due to D.A. Gudkov. There are nine types of singular points for irreducible complex quartic curves and ten types of singular points for reducible complex quartic curves. We derive the complete classification with proof by using the computer algebra system Maple. We clarify that the classification is based on computing just enough of the Puiseux expansion to separate the branches. Thus, the proof consists of a…
Let K be a field of characteristic different from 2 and C an elliptic curve over K given by a Weierstrass equation. To divide an element of the group C by 2, one must solve a certain quartic equation. We characterise the quartics arising from this procedure and find how far the quartic determines the curve and the point. We find the quartics coming from 2-division of 2- and 3-torsion points, and generalise this correspondence to singular plane cubics. We use these results to study the question of which degree 4 maps of curves can be realised as duplication of a multisection on an elliptic surf…
In the previous paper, we construct new subvarieties in the varieties of power sums for certain quartic hypersurfaces. In this paper, we show that these quartics coincide with the Scorza quartics of general pairs of trigonal curves and ineffective theta characteristics. Among other applications, we give an affirmative answer to the conjecture of Dolgachev and Kanev on the existence of the Scorza quartics for any general pairs of curves and ineffective theta characteristics. We also give descriptions of the moduli spaces of trigonal even spin curves. For curves of genus 4, we deepen this descri…
As a continuation of the work of Freiermuth and Trautmann, we study the geometry of the moduli space of stable sheaves on $\mathbb{P}^3$ with Hilbert polynomial $4m+1$. The moduli space has three irreducible components whose generic elements are, respectively, sheaves supported on rational quartic curves, on elliptic quartic curves, or on planar quartic curves. The main idea of the proof is to relate the moduli space with the Hilbert scheme of curves by wall crossing. We present all stable sheaves contained in the intersections of the three irreducible components. We also classify stable sheav…
We compute the rational cohomology of the moduli space of non-singular non-hyperelliptic complex projective curves of genus 3 with an odd theta characteristic.
In this paper we consider plane quartics with to involutions. We compute the Dixmier invariants, the bitangents and the Matrix representation problem of these curves, showing that they have symbolic solutions for the last two questions.
Our fundamental result is the construction of new subvarieties in the varieties of power sums for the Scorza quartic of any general pairs of trigonal curves and non-effective theta characteristics. This is a generalization of Mukai's description of smooth prime Fano threefolds of genus twelve as the varieties of power sums for plane quartics. Among other applications, we give an affirmative answer to the conjecture of Dolgachev and Kanev on the existence of the Scorza quartic for any general pairs of curves and non-effective theta characteristics.
We give uniformizations of the Klein quartic curve and the Fermat septic curve as Shimura curves parametrizing Abelian $6$-folds with endomorphisms $\ZZ[\z_7]$.
We investigate Zariski multiples of plane curves $Z_1, \dots, Z_N$ such that each $Z_i$ is a union of a smooth quartic curve, some of its bitangents, and some of its 4-tangent conics. We show that, for plane curves of this type, the deformation types are equal to the homeomorphism types, and that the number of deformation types grows as $O(d^{62})$ when the degree $d$ of the plane curves tends to infinity.
Let $C$ be a general plane quartic and let ${\rm Fl}(C)$ denote the configuration of inflection lines of $C$. We show that if $D$ is any plane quartic with the same configuration of inflection lines ${\rm Fl}(C)$, then the quartics $C$ and $D$ coincide.
We identify the algebra of regular functions on the space of quartic polynomials in three complex variables invariant under SL(3,C) with an algebra of meromorphic automorphic forms on the complex 6-ball. We also discuss the underlying geometry.
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.
A plane quartic curve is called Lüroth if it contains the ten vertices of a complete pentalateral. White and Miller constructed in 1909 a covariant quartic 4-fold, associated to any plane quartic. We review their construction and we show how it gives a computational tool to detect if a plane quartic is Lüroth. As a byproduct, the 28 bitangents of a general plane quartic correspond to 28 singular points of the associated White-Miller quartic 4-fold.
We describe a natural open stratum in the moduli space of smooth real pointed quartic curves in the projective plane. This stratum consists of real isomorphism classes of pairs $(C, p)$ with $p$ a real point on the curve $C$ such that the tangent line at $p$ intersects the curve in two distinct points besides $p$. We will prove that this stratum consists of $20$ connected components. Each of these components has a real toric structure defined by an involution in the Weyl group of type $E_7$.
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.
Aronhold's classical result states that a plane quartic can be recovered by the configuration of any Aronhold systems of bitangents, i.e. special 7-tuples of bitangents such that the six points at which any subtriple of bitangents touches the quartic do not lie on the same conic in the projective plane. In 2005 Lehavi proved that a smooth plane quartic can be explicitly reconstructed from its 28 bitangents; this result improved Aronhold's method of recovering the curve. In a 2011 paper Plaumann, Sturmfels and Vinzant introduced an eight by eight symmetric matrix parametrizing the bitangents of…
Let $R_4$ be the space of rational plane curves of degree $4$. In this paper, we obtain a sheaf theoretic compactification of $R_4$ via the space of $α$-semistable pairs on $\mathbb{P}^2$ and its birational relations through wall-crossings of semistable pairs. We obtain the Poincaré polynomial of the compactified space.
We describe a construction of plane quartics with prescribed Galois operation on the 28 bitangents, in the particular case of a Galois invariant Steiner hexad. As an application, we solve the inverse Galois problem for degree two del Pezzo surfaces in the corresponding particular case.
This paper is about the family of smooth quartic surfaces $X \subset \mathbb{P}^3$ that are invariant under the Heisenberg group $H_{2,2}$. For a very general such surface $X$, we show that the Picard number of $X$ is 16 and determine its Picard group. It turns out that the general Heisenberg invariant quartic contains 320 smooth conics and that in the very general case, this collection of conics generates the Picard group.
We classify quartic del Pezzo surface fibrations over the projective line via numerical invariants, giving explicit examples for small values of the invariants. For generic such fibrations, we describe explicitly the geometry of spaces of sections to the fibration, and mappings to the intermediate Jacobian of the total space. We exhibit examples where these are birational, which has applications to arithmetic questions, especially over finite fields.
It is known that the moduli space of plane quartic curves is birational to an arithmetic quotient of a 6-dimensional complex ball. In this paper, we shall show that there exists a 15-dimensional space of meromorphic automorphic forms on the complex ball which gives a birational embedding of the moduli space of plane quartics with level 2 structure into 14-dimensional projective space. This map coincides with the one given by Coble by using Gopel invariants.
In this article, we study birational transformations belonging to Galois points for certain plane quartic curve. In fact, we see that they can be extended to Cremona transformations. In particular, we determine the conjugacy class of them. We have that they are all conjugate to linear transformations.
Let $D$ be an irreducible plane curve. In this article, we first introduce a notion of a quadratic residue curve mod $D$, and study quadratic residue concis $C$ mod an irreducible quartic curve $Q$. As an application, we study a dihedral cover of $P^2$ with branch locus $C+Q$ and give two examples of Zariski pairs as by-products.
We describe a construction of plane quartics with prescribed Galois operation on the 28 bitangents, in the particular case of a Galois invariant Cayley octad. As an application, we solve the inverse Galois problem for degree two del Pezzo surfaces in the corresponding particular case.
A recent result shows that a general smooth plane quartic can be recovered from its 24 inflection lines and a single inflection point. Nevertheless, the question whether or not a smooth plane curve of degree at least 4 is determined by its inflection lines is still open. Over a field of characteristic 0, we show that it is possible to reconstruct any smooth plane quartic with at least 8 hyperinflection points by its inflection lines. Our methods apply also in positive characteristic, where we show a similar result, with two exceptions in characteristic 13.
In the case of the fine Simpson moduli spaces of 1-dimensional sheaves supported on plane quartics, the subvariety of sheaves that are not locally free on their support is connected, singular, and has codimension 2.
In this work we compute the Dixmier invariants and bitangents of the plane quartics with 3,6 or 9-cyclic automorphisms, we find that a quartic curve with 6-cyclic automorphism will have 3 horizontal bitangents which form an asysgetic triple. We also discuss the linear matrix representation problem of such curves, and find a degree 6 equation of 1 variable which solves the symbolic solution of the linear matrix representation problem for the curve with 6-cyclic automorphism.
In a section of his 1876 treatise Theorie der Abel'schen Functionen vom Geschlecht 3 Weber proved a formula that expresses the bitangents of a non-singular plane quartic in terms of Riemann theta constants (Thetanullwerte). The present note is devoted to a modern presentation of Weber's formula. In the end a connection with the universal bitangent matrix is also displayed.
In this paper, we give a Zariski triple of the arrangements for a smooth quartic and its four bitangents. A key criterion to distinguish the topology of such curves is given by a matrix related to the height pairing of rational points arising from three bitangent lines.
A polynomial transformation of the real plane $\Bbb R^2$ is a mapping $\Bbb R^2\to\Bbb R^2$ given by two polynomials of two variables. Such a transformation is called cubic if the degrees of its polynomials are not greater than three. It turns out that cubic transformations are associated with some binary and quaternary quartic forms. In the present paper these forms are defined and studied.
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.
Using the results of Dalla Piazza, Fiorentino and Salvati Manni, we determine an explicit modular form defining the locus of plane quartics with a hyperflex among all plane quartics. As a result, we provide a direct way to compute the divisor class of the locus of plane quartics with a hyperflex within $\overline{\mathcal{M}_3}$, first obtained by Cukierman in 1989. Moreover, the knowledge of such an explicit modular form also allows us to describe explicitly the boundary of the hyperflex locus in $\overline{\mathcal{M}_3}$. As an example, we show that the locus of banana curves (two irreducib…
In this paper the number of $\bar{\mathbb{F}}_q$-isomorphism classes of general Jacobi quartic curves, i.e., the number of general Jacobi quartic curves with distinct $j$-invariants, over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ is enumerated.
Motivated by the computation of the BPS-invariants on a local Calabi-Yau threefold suggested by S. Katz, we compute the Chow ring and the cohomology ring of the moduli space of stable sheaves of Hilbert polynomial $4m+1$ on the projective plane. As a byproduct, we obtain the total Chern class and Euler characteristics of all line bundles, which provide a numerical data for the strange duality on the plane.
In this article we obtain a rigid isotopy classification of generic pointed quartic curves $(A,p)$ in $\mathbb{R}\mathbb{P}^{2}$ by studying the combinatorial properties of dessins. The dessins are real versions, proposed by S. Orevkov, of Grothendieck's dessins d'enfants. This classification contains 20 classes determined by the number of ovals of $A$, the parity of the oval containing the marked point $p$, the number of ovals that the tangent line $T_p A$ intersects, the nature of connected components of $A\setminus T_p A$ adjacent to $p$, and in the maximal case, on the convexity of the pos…
The moduli space M_0 of semi-stable rank 2 vector bundles with fixed trivial determinant over a non-hyperelliptic curve C of genus 3 is isomorphic to a quartic hypersurface in P^7 (Coble's quartic). We show that M_0 is self-dual and that its polar map associates to a stable bundle E \in M_0 a bundle F which is characterized by dim H^0(C, E \otimes F) = 4. The projective space PH^0(C, E \otimes F) is equipped with a net of quadrics Πand it is shown that the map which associates to E \in M_0 the isomorphism class of the plane quartic Hessian curve of Πis a dominant map to the moduli space of gen…
We study smooth tropical plane quartic curves and show that they satisfy certain properties analogous to (but also different from) smooth plane quartics in algebraic geometry. For example, we show that every such curve admits either infinitely many or exactly 7 bitangent lines. We also prove that a smooth tropical plane quartic curve cannot be hyperelliptic.
We decompose each moduli space of semistable sheaves on the complex projective plane with support of dimension one and degree four into locally closed subvarieties, each subvariety being the good or geometric quotient of a set of morphisms of locally free sheaves modulo a reductive or a nonreductive group. We find locally free resolutions of length one of all these sheaves and describe them.
This work concerns Waring decompositions of a certain kind of plane quartics of high rank. The main result is the following. Let x, l_1, ...., l_7 be linear forms and q a quadratic form on a vector space of dimension 3. If x^2q=l_1^4+...+l_7^4 and the lines l_1=0, ..., l_7=0 in P^2 intersect x=0 in seven distinct points, then the line x=0 is (possibly improperly) tangent to the conic q=0.
The hypersurface of Luroth quartic curves inside the projective space of plane quartics has degree 54. We give a proof of this fact along the lines outlined in a paper by Morley, published in 1919. Another proof has been given by Le Potier and Tikhomirov in 2001, in the setting of moduli spaces of vector bundles on the projective plane. Morley's proof uses the description of plane quartics as branch curves of Geiser involutions and gives new geometrical interpretations of the 36 planes associated to the Cremona hexahedral representations of a nonsingular cubic surface.
Two Magma functions are given: one computes linear systems of plane curves with non-ordinary singularities and the other computes a scheme which parametrizes given degree plane curves with given singularities. These functions provide an efficient tool to construct explicit equations of singular plane algebraic curves. By computing singular branch curves, we obtain equations of normal quartic surfaces in $\mathbb C\mathbb P^3$ having the following combinations of rational double points: $\mathsf D_5\mathsf E_7\mathsf E_7,$ $\mathsf D_7\mathsf D_6\mathsf D_6,$ $\mathsf E_6\mathsf D_8\mathsf D_5,…
At the time of writing, the general problem of finding the maximal Waring rank for homogeneous polynomials of fixed degree and number of variables (or, equivalently, the maximal symmetric rank for symmetric tensors of fixed order and in fixed dimension) is still unsolved. To our knowledge, the answer for ternary quartics is not widely known and can only be found among the results of a master's thesis by Johannes Kleppe at the University of Oslo (1999). In the present work we give a (direct) proof that the maximal rank for plane quartics is seven, following the elementary geometric idea of spli…