A note on the cone conjecture for \(K3\) surfaces in positive characteristic (Q2424325): Difference between revisions

For a complex \(K3\) surface \(X\), a theorem of \textit{H. Sterk} [Math. Z. 189, 507--513 (1985; Zbl 0545.14032)] asserts that the automorphism group Aut\((X)\) acts on the nef cone of the surface with a rational polyhedral fundamental domain (a special case of the cone conjecture of Kawamata-Morrison). This has numerous important applications; for instance, it implies that there are only finitely many smooth rational curves on \(X\) up to \(\Aut(X)\), and same for the number of genus one fibrations. The paper under review extends these results to algebraically closed fields of characteristic \(p>2\) (non-closed fields have recently been considered by Bright, Logan and Van Luijk [\textit{M. Bright} et al., ``Finiteness theorems for \(K3\) surfaces over arbitrary fields'', to appear in Eur. J. Math. \url{doi:10.1007/s40879-019-00337-4})]. The proof is divided into two parts. The first part deals with \(K3\) surfaces of finite height where lifting arguments going back to Deligne and van der Geer-Katsura can be used to apply Sterk's characteristic zero result (and then specialize back). The second part concerns supersingular \(K3\) surfaces, i.e. those with Picard number \(\rho=22\). Here there are Torelli theorems due to Ogus available (outside characteristic \(2\)) which can replace their characteristic zero counterparts. The authors also present an additional argument to circumvent to use of the Tate conjecture for \(K3\) surfaces (which was not proved yet in full when the first preprint version of this paper appeared) by providing a deformation theoretic argument of independent interest to cover hypothetical \(K3\) surfaces which are Artin-supersingular (i.e. of height \(h=\infty\)), but not Shioda-supersingular (i.e.\ \(\rho<22\)).