On Enriques-Fano threefolds and a conjecture of Castelnuovo (Q6047274): Difference between revisions

Consider a linear system of surfaces of the projective space \({\mathbb P}^3\) whose general element desingularizes as a a surface of zero arithmetic and zero geometric genus. The general element of the linear subsystem defined by having a triple point at a general point was conjectured (by Castelnuovo, see the Introduction of the paper and references therein) to be: (C) either of the same genera as a general element of the starting linear system; or (B) the union of two rational surfaces meeting along a rational curve; or (A) an irreducible surface which desingularizes as an irregular surface of zero geometric genus and arithmetic genus equal to \(-1\). Moreover, in (A), a description of the image by the rational map defined by the subsystem is also provided. Castelnuovo's arguments lead, see Section 2, to a proof of the conjecture for any smooth rational threefold and, in Section 4, to a generalization for certain singular threefolds. Then the focus is put on the so called Enriques-Fano threeefolds: normal, with a linear system of ample divisors whose general one is an Enriques surface \(S\), and not a cone over \(S\). They are known to be of genus \(\leq 17\) and, in particular, the paper deals first with the so called classical Enriques-Fano threefold \(W \subset {\mathbb P}^{13}\), of genus \(13\), and defined as the image of \({\mathbb P}^3\) in \({\mathbb P}^{13}\) by the linear system of sextics with a double point along the edges of a tetrahedron. To be concrete (see Thm. 1.1), it falls in case (A): the general element in the linear subsystem of hyperplane sections of \(W \subset {\mathbb P}^{13}\) having a triple point at a general point \(w \in W\) is birrational to an elliptic ruled surface; and the image of \(W\) in \({\mathbb P}^{13-10}\) by this linear subsystem is a Del Pezzo surface with four singular points. Furthermore, the Enriques-Fano threefold described as the quotient of \({\mathbb P}^1\times {\mathbb P}^1 \times {\mathbb P}^1\) by the involution defined in each factor as \([x_0:x_1] \to [x_0:-x_1]\), endowed with a particular linear system which embeds it in \({\mathbb P}^{13}\) (example of Enriques-Fano threefold by Sano and Bayle, see Section 4 and references therein) is shown to be of classical type via a computer aided analysis by Macaulay2. Finally, for the extremal (genus 17) Enriques-Fano threefold constructed by Prokhorov (see Section 4 and references therein), which is only known to be unirational, it is shown (see Cor. 1.2) that the general element in the linear subsystem of hyperplanes with a triple point at a general point is birational to an elliptic ruled surface.