Related papers: The Igusa quartic and the Prym map, with some rati…
We study the moduli space of pairs consisting of a smooth cubic surface and a smooth hyperplane section, via a Hodge theoretic period map due to Laza, Pearlstein, and the second named author. The construction associates to such a pair a…
We isolate a class of smooth rational cubic fourfolds X containing a plane whose associated quadric surface bundle does not have a rational section. This is equivalent to the nontriviality of the Brauer class of the even Clifford algebra…
We study the second fundamental form of the Siegel metric in $\mathcal A_5$ restricted to the locus of intermediate Jacobians of cubic threefolds. We prove that the image of this second fundamental form, which is known to be non-trivial, is…
The Abel-Jacobi maps of the families of elliptic quintics and rational quartics lying on a smooth cubic threefold are studied. It is proved that their generic fiber is the 5-dimensional projective space for quintics, and a smooth…
Bidouble covers $\pi : S \mapsto Q$ of the quadric Q are parametrized by connected families depending on four positive integers a,b,c,d. In the special case where b=d we call them abc-surfaces. Such a Galois covering $\pi$ admits a small…
We find explicit projective models of a compact Shimura curve and of a (non-compact) surface which are the moduli spaces of principally polarised abelian fourfolds with an automorphism of order five. The surface has a 24-nodal canonical…
The surface corresponding to the moduli space of quadratic endomorphisms of $\mathbb{P}^1$ with a marked periodic point of order $n$ is studied. It is shown that the surface is rational over $\mathbb{Q}$ when $n\le 5$ and is of general type…
This paper deals with a study of the rational elliptic surfaces whose $J$-invariant functions are of degree one. Almost all of these elliptic surfaces have four singular fibers, while the remaining surfaces have only three singular fibers.…
For any standard quadric surface bundle over $\mathbb P^2$, we show that the locus of rational fibres is dense in the moduli space.
Refereed version to appear in Michigan Mathematical Journal. A mistake in the last section of the previous version has been corrected. The new title exactly describes the main result obtained. Building on the geometry of cubic surfaces and…
We prove in one go that each of the 4 families of Burniat surfaces with K^2 = 6,5,4, is a connected component of the moduli space of surfaces of general type. We prove also the rationality of each component. In the nodal case (one of the…
We exhibit new examples of rational cubic fourfolds, parametrized by a countably infinite union of codimension-two subvarieties in the moduli space. Our examples are fibered in sextic del Pezzo surfaces over the projective plane; they are…
A desmic quartic surface is a birational model of the Kummer surface of the self-product of an elliptic curve. We recall the classical geometry of these surfaces and study their analogs in arbitrary characteristic. Moreover, we discuss the…
We show that the intermediate Jacobian fibration associated to any smooth cubic fourfold $X$ admits a hyper-K\"ahler compactification $J(X)$ with a regular Lagrangian fibration $J \to \mathbb P^5$. This builds upon arXiv:1602.05534, where…
The aim of the present paper is to prove the rationality of the universal family of polarized $ K3 $ surfaces of degree 14. This is achieved by identifying it with the moduli space of cubic fourfolds plus the data of a quartic scroll. The…
A general linear determinantal quartic in $\mathbb{P}^4$ is nodal, non-$\mathbb{Q}$-factorial and rational. We show that the family $\mathcal{F}$ of such quartics also contains rational $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial quartics, and that a generic…
By applying Borcherds' theory of automorphic forms on bounded symmetric domains of type IV, we give a 5-dimensional linear system of automorphic forms of weight 6 on Igusa quartic 3-fold which induces an S_6-equivariant rational map of…
We give a description of the intermediate Jacobian fibration attached to a general complex cubic fourfold $X$ containing a plane as a Lagrangian subfibration of a moduli space of torsion sheaves on the K3 surface associated to $X$ up to a…
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…
Some classes of cubic fourfolds are birational to fibrations over $P^2$, where the fibers are rational surfaces. This is the case for cubics containing a plane (resp. an elliptic ruled surface), where the fibers are quadric surfaces (resp.…