The class of the locus of intermediate Jacobians of cubic threefolds (Q1758213)

Let \({\mathcal A}_g\) denote the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties of dimension \(g\geq 2\) and \({\mathcal A}^{\text{per\,}f}_g\) its perfect cone compactification. It is well-known that the theta divisor of the intermediate Jacobian of a cubic threefold has unique triple point and this is necessarily an odd 2-division point. As a generalization the authors consider for any \(g\) the locus \(I^{(g)}\) of principally polarized abelian varieties of dimension \(g\) whose theta divisor is singular at some odd 2-divison point. It is of codimension \(g\) for \(g\leq 5\) and it is conjectured that this is true for any \(g\). The first result of the paper is a computation of the class of \(I^{g}\) in the Chow group under the assumption of the conjecture. The proof uses the interpretation of the gradient of a theta function as a section of a vector bundle. Moreover for \(g\leq 5\) the class of the closure of \(I^{(g)}\) in \({\mathcal A}^{\text{per\,}f}_g\) as well as its projection to the tautological ring are computed. For \(g=5\) any indecomposable 5-dimensional ppav with a triple point on the theta divisor is in the closure of the locus \(IJ\) of intermediate Jacobians of cubic threefolds in \({\mathcal A}^{\text{per\,}f}\). Apart from \(IJ\) the space \(I^{(5)}\) contains second irreducible component, namely the \({\mathcal A}_1\otimes \theta^{(4)}_{\text{null}}\), where \(\theta^{(4)}_{\text{null}}\) denotes the theta-null divisor in \({\mathcal A}_4\). The classes of \({\mathcal A}_1\otimes \theta^{(4)}_{\text{null}}\) and its closure in \({\mathcal A}^{\text{per\,}f}_5\) are computed. This gives finally the projection of the class of the closure of \(IJ\) to the tautological ring. Some results on the geometry of the boundary of \(IJ\) in \({\mathcal A}^{\text{per\,}f}_5\) are concluded.