The Halphen cubics of order two (Q2404861)

In the paper under review, the authors study the so-called Roulleau-Urzúa arrangement of cubic curves in the complex projective plane, which has an important meaning in the theory of surfaces of general type [\textit{X. Roulleau} and \textit{G. Urzúa}, Ann. Math. (2) 182, No. 1, 287--306 (2015; Zbl 1346.14097)]. The main aim behind this paper is to show that the mentioned arrangement can be described very explicitly using a classical theory of linear series and certain facts known for the so-called dual Hesse arrangement of \(9\) lines and \(12\) triple points. The key observation is that cubics appearing in the construction due to Roulleau-Urzúa are in fact \textit{Halphen cubics of order} \(n/3\) (see Introduction therein for details). The main result of the paper can be formulated as follows. Main Theorem. For each \(n \in 3\mathbb{N}\), denote by \(H(n)\) the union of \(\frac{4}{3}(n^{2}-3)\) Halphen cubics of order \(n/3\). The singularities of \(H(n)\) are the following: \(12\) points of multiplicity \(n^{2}-3\) at the vertices of the dual Hesse arrangement of lines, \(n^{2}/3 - 1\) triple points infinitely near to them, and \((n^{2}-3)(n^{2}/3 - 3)\) quadruple points.One of possible applications of the Roulleau-Urzúa arrangement of cubics can be noticed in a different context, the so-called bounded negativity conjecture. It can be shown that the Harbourne index of \(H(n)\), the self-intersection of the strict transform of \(H(n)\) under the blowing-up at the singular locus of \(H(n)\) divided by the number of singular points, tends to \(-4\) as \(n \rightarrow \infty\). Also, the authors provide specific equations (for the first time) of the Halphen cubics of order \(2\).