Discriminantal groups and Zariski pairs of sextic curves (Q431040)

Two plane curves \(C_1\) and \(C_2\) of the same degree are said to be a Zariski pair if they have the same combinatorial data and \((\mathbb{P}^2,C_1)\) and \((\mathbb{P}^2,C_2)\) are not homeomorphic (see e.g. \textit{E. Artal-Bartolo} and \textit{H. Tokunaga} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III. Ser. 80, No. 1, 127--144 (2000; Zbl 1031.14012)]). Similarly one can define a Zariski \(k\)-plet (see \textit{A. Degtyarev} [Comment. Math. Helv. 84, No. 3, 639--671 (2009; Zbl 1207.14034 )] for a brief account on history of Zariski pairs). Let \(C\) be a reduced sextic curve with simple singularities only and let \( X\) be the \(K3\) surface obtained from the double cover branched over \(C\). It is known that the orthogonal complement in \(H^2(X,\mathbb Z)\) of the sublattice generated by all irreducible components of the inverse image of \(C\) in \(X\) is a topological invariant of the pair \((\mathbb{P}^2,C)\) (see \textit{I. Shimada} [Adv. Geom. 8, No. 2, 205--225 (2008; Zbl 1153.14017)]). By Shimada's theorem and Nikulin's lattice theory, a weaker topological invariant of \((\mathbb{P}^2,C)\) is the discriminantal group of the primitive hull of this sublattice. In this paper, the authors use this invariant to obtain a series of Zariski pairs and three Zariski triplets of reduced sextics. These pairs differ from arithmetic Zariski pairs of degree six found by \textit{I. Shimada} [Adv. Stud. Pure Math. 56, 285--301 (2009; Zbl 1192.14017)] and in [Adv. Geom. 8, No. 2, 205--225 (2008;Zbl 1153.14017)] by a significant geometric property, which enables the authors to calculate explicit equations; in particular equations for Zariski pairs of three conics with configuration \(3A_5+3A_1\) were computed by hand and other equations by using Maple. Similar results are obtained by \textit{I. Shimada} in [Mich. Math. J. 59, No. 3, 621--665 (2010;Zbl 1230.14041)].