Stable pair compactification of moduli of \(K3\) surfaces of degree 2 (Q6161162)

Polarised \(K3\) surfaces of degree two are double covers \(\pi\colon X \to \mathbb P^2\) branched over a sextic curve, with polarisation \(L = \pi^*\mathcal O_{\mathbb P^2}(1)\). By the Torelli theorem, their moduli space \(F_2\) is the quotient of a 19-dimensional hermitian symmetric domain by an arithmetic group. As such, \(F_2\) admits infinitely many (semi)-toroidal compactification defined in terms of essentially Hodge-theoretic data. These usually do not have a modular interpretation and do not admit universal families. Geometrically, the double cover contains a special divisor, namely the ramification \(R\in |3L|\) of the the map \(\pi\). The authors study the stable pairs compactification \(\bar F_2^\text{slc}\), which parametrises pairs \((X, \epsilon R)\) for sufficiently small \(\epsilon\), and show that its normalisation \(\nu \colon F_2^\text{semi} {\to} \bar F_2^\text{slc}\) is semi-toroidal. The corresponding semi-fan can be refined to the Coxeter fan, so that there is a universal family over the associated toroidal compactification \(\bar F_2^\text{tor}\). In this model, the surfaces parametrised by the boundary and the \(1\)-parameter degenerations are encoded by means of (singular) integral affine structures on the 2-sphere.