Modular forms and special cubic fourfolds (Q2437480)

This article describes the degrees of special cubic divisors in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds with at most ADE-singularities by coefficients of a modular form. From the author's introduction: ``A smooth cubic fourfold \(X\) in \({\mathbb{P}}^5\) is special of discriminant \(d>6\) if it contains an algebraic surface \(S\), and the discriminant of the saturated lattice spanned by \(h^2\) and \([S]\) in \(H^4(X, {\mathbb{Z}})\) is \(d\), where \(h=c_1({\mathcal O}(1))\). The Zariski-closure of the collection of such cubic fourfolds forms an irreducible Divisor \({\mathcal C}_d\) in the moduli space \(\mathcal M\) (cf. [\textit{R. Laza}, J. Algebr. Geom. 18, No. 3, 511--545 (2009; Zbl 1169.14026)]) of cubic fourfolds with at worst isolated ADE singularities and is nonempty if and only if \(d\equiv 0,2 \pmod 6\). We interpret \({\mathcal C}_6\) as the set of singular cubics in \(\mathcal M\). The special cubic divisor \({\mathcal C}_d\) in the Hilbert scheme \({\mathbb{P}}^{55}\) of cubic hypersurfaces is the lift of \({\mathcal C}_d\).'' The main result (Theorem 1) gives for the generating series \(\Theta (q):=-2+\sum_{d>2}^\infty N_d q^{\frac{d}{6}}\) with the degrees \(N_d:= \text{deg} {\mathcal C}_d\) of the special cubic divisors an expression as a modular form of weight 11 and level 3. In Theorem 2, the degrees \(N_d\) are shown to be the Fourier coefficients of a vector valued modular form \({\overrightarrow{\Theta} } (q)\), which is calculated explicitly in Theorem 3. The authors point out that there was a later independent approach to their Theorem 3 by \textit{A. Iliev, E. Scheidegger} and \textit{L. Katzarkov}, [``Pencils of cubic fourfolds'', in preparation].