Exceptional collections on Dolgachev surfaces associated with degenerations (Q1684668)

This paper establishes the first example of exceptional collections of maximal length, which consists of spherical objects, in the derived category \(D^b(S)\) of smooth projective surface \(S\) of Kodaira dimension one. Concretely, the authors study the case where \(S\) is a Dolgachev surface, in other words a simply connected minimal elliptic surface with \(p_g=q=0\) and of Kodaira dimension \(1\), under the assumption that \(S\) has two multiple fibers of multiplicities \(2\) and \(3\). The paper starts with a special construction of such a Dolgachev surface \(S\) following the work of \textit{Y. Lee} and \textit{J. Park} [Invent. Math. 170, No. 3, 483--505 (2007; Zbl 1126.14049)]. The output is a one parameter \(\mathbb{Q}\)-Gorenstein smoothing \(\varphi:\mathcal{X} \to (0 \in T)\) of a projective normal surface \(X\) with two \(T_1\)-singularities of types \(\frac{1}{4}(1,1)\) and \(\frac{1}{n^2}(1,n a-1)\), with coprime integers \(n>a>0\). The generic fiber of \(\varphi\) is shown to be a Dolgachev surface \(S\) of type \((2,n)\) (Theorem 2.8). Next, using the technique on \(\mathbb{Q}\)-Gorenstein smoothing due to \textit{P. Hacking} [Duke Math. J. 162, No. 6, 1171--1202 (2013; Zbl 1282.14074)], one can construct exceptional vector bundles on \(S\) associated with the degeneration \(S \rightsquigarrow X\). In the course of the construction, some geometric description is also obtained (Proposition 3.2). Moreover, when \((n,a)=(3,1)\), one can give a basis \(\{G_i\}_{i=1}^{10}\) of the Picard group of \(S\) (Theorem 4.9). Using this basis the desired exceptional collection is obtained (Theorem 5.5 and Corollary 5.9).