Affine cones over cubic surfaces are flexible in codimension one

Let Y be a smooth del Pezzo surface of degree 3 polarized by a very ample divisor that is not proportional to the anticanonical one. Then the affine cone over Y is flexible in codimension one. Equivalently, such a cone has an open subset with an infinitely transitive action of the special automorphism group on it.

An Extension of BCOV Invariant

Bershadsky, Cecotti, Ooguri, and Vafa constructed a real-valued invariant for Calabi–Yau manifolds, which is called the BCOV invariant. In this paper, we consider a pair $(X,Y)$, where $X$ is a compact Kähler manifold and $Y\in \big |K_X^m\big |$ with $m\in{\mathbb{Z}}\backslash \{0,-1\}$. We extend the BCOV invariant to such pairs. If $m=-2$ and $X$ is a rigid del Pezzo surface, the extended BCOV invariant is equivalent to Yoshikawa’s equivariant BCOV invariant. If $m=1$, the extended BCOV invariant is well behaved under blowup. It was conjectured that birational Calabi–Yau three-folds have the same BCOV invariant. As an application of our extended BCOV invariant, we show that this conjecture holds for Atiyah flops.

On Morin Configurations of Higher Length

This paper studies finite Morin configurations $F$ of planes in $\mathbb P^5$ having higher length—a question naturally related to the theory of Gushel–Mukai varieties. The uniqueness of the configuration of maximal cardinality $20$ is proven. This is related to the canonical genus $6$ curve $C_{\ell }$ union of the $10$ lines in a smooth quintic Del Pezzo surface $Y$ in $\mathbb P^5$ and to the Petersen graph. More in general an irreducible family of special configurations of length $\geq 11$, we name as Morin–Del Pezzo configurations, is considered and studied. This includes the configuration of maximal cardinality and families of configurations of lenght $\geq 16$, previously unknown. It depends on $9$ moduli and is defined via the family of nodal and rational canonical curves of $Y$. The special relations between Morin–Del Pezzo configurations and the geometry of special threefolds, like the Igusa quartic or its dual Segre primal, are focused.

$${\mathfrak {S}}_5$$-equivariant syzygies for the Del Pezzo surface of degree 5

The Del Pezzo surface Y of degree 5 is the blow up of the plane in 4 general points, embedded in $${\mathbb {P}}^5$$P5 by the system of cubics passing through these points. It is the simplest example of the Buchsbaum–Eisenbud theorem on arithmetically-Gorenstein subvarieties of codimension 3 being Pfaffian. Its automorphism group is the symmetric group $${\mathfrak {S}}_5$$S5. We give canonical explicit $${\mathfrak {S}}_5$$S5-invariant Pfaffian equations through a 6$$\times $$×6 antisymmetric matrix. We give concrete geometric descriptions of the irreducible representations of $${\mathfrak {S}}_5$$S5. Finally, we give $${\mathfrak {S}}_5$$S5-invariant equations for the embedding of Y inside $$({\mathbb {P}}^1)^5$$(P1)5, and show that they have the same Hilbert resolution as for the Del Pezzo of degree 4.

Genus Six Curves, K3 Surfaces, and Stable Pairs

A general smooth curve of genus six lies on a quintic del Pezzo surface. Artebani and Kondō [ 4] construct a birational period map for genus six curves by taking ramified double covers of del Pezzo surfaces. The map is not defined for special genus six curves. In this paper, we construct a smooth Deligne–Mumford stack ${\mathfrak{P}}_0$ parametrizing certain stable surface-curve pairs, which essentially resolves this map. Moreover, we give an explicit description of pairs in ${\mathfrak{P}}_0$ containing special curves.

Weakly exceptional singularities of log del Pezzo surfaces

We complete the computation of global log canonical thresholds, or equivalently alpha invariants, of quasi-smooth well-formed complete intersection log del Pezzo surfaces of amplitude 1 in weighted projective spaces. As an application, we prove that they are weakly exceptional. And we investigate the super-rigid affine Fano 3-folds containing a log del Pezzo surface as boundary.