On boundaries of moduli spaces of non-singular cubic surfaces with star points (Q1884368)

Let \(\mathbb{P}^{19}=\mathbb{P}(H^0(\mathbb{P}^3,\mathcal O(3)))\) be the space of cubic surfaces, and \(\Delta\subset \mathbb{P}^{19}\) the locus of the singular ones. Then, the moduli space of smooth cubics is the quotient \((\mathbb{P}^{19}\setminus\Delta)/\text{PGL}(4)\), and \(\overline{M}\) its GIT compactification, coming together with the map \(\varphi\colon (\mathbb{P}^{19})^{\text{ss}}\to\overline{M}\). In the paper under review, the geometry of the boundary \(\overline{M}\setminus M\) is studied in terms of components associated to surfaces with star points (these are points on a smooth cubic surface which are the intersection of three lines of the surface). \(\mathbb{P}^{19}\setminus\Delta\) is filtered by the spaces \(H_s\) representing surfaces with at least \(s\) star points, and stratified by their components \(H_s^{(r)}\), the locus of cubic surfaces generically containing exactly \(r\) star points. Then, one can study their boundaries \(\Delta H_s^{(r)}\), which are the intersections of \(((\mathbb{P}^{19})^{\text{ss}}\setminus\Delta)\) with the closure of \(H_s^{(r)}\), and the respective boundaries \(\varphi(\Delta H_s^{(r)})\) in \(\overline{M}\). By using the correspondence between cubic surfaces and schemes of six points in \(\mathbb{P}^2\), the author completely describes the irreducible components of \(\Delta H_1\), and constructs several components of \(\Delta H_s^{(r)}\) and \(\varphi(\Delta H_s^{(r)})\) for \(s=1,2,4\).