The moduli space of Hessian quartic surfaces and automorphic forms (Q1934978)

This paper studies the moduli space of marked Hessian quartic surfaces of cubic surfaces. It is shown that there exists fifteen automorphic forms of weight \(8\) on this moduli space. These automorphic forms can be interpreted in terms of the coefficients of the Sylvester form of a general cubic surface. Let \(S\) be a cubic surface defined by a homogeneous polynomial \(F(z_0,z_1,z_2,z_3)\) of degree \(3\). A general cubic surface \(S\) can be written in the Sylvester form: \(\lambda_1x_1^3+\dots+\lambda_5x_5^3=0,\,\,x_1+\dots+x_5=0\) where \(x_1,\dots, x_5\) are linear forms in \(z_0,\dots,z_3\) each four of which are linearly independent, and \(\lambda_i\in{\mathbb{C}}\). A general cubic surface defined by the Sylvester form is uniquely determined by \(\lambda=(\lambda_1,\dots, \lambda_5)\in{\mathbb{P}}^4\) (up to permutation). The Hessian of \(S\) defines a quartic surface \(H\), called the Hessian surface of \(S\). \(H\) is given by \({{1\over\lambda_1x_1}} +\dots+{{1\over\lambda_5x_5}}=0,\, x_1+\dots +x_5=0\). The birational involution of \(H\) given by \((x_1:\dots:x_5)\mapsto ({{1\over\lambda_1x_x}}: \dots: {{1\over\lambda_5x_5)}}\) induces an fixed-point free involution \(\sigma\) of the minimal model \(X\) of \(H\), and hence \(X\) is the covering K3 surfaces of an Enriques surace. In this paper, fifteen automorphic forms of weight \(8\) are exhibited on the period domain of Hessian quartic surfaces. This is done first dividing holomorphic automorphic forms \(F_V\) of weight \(4\) with known zeros on the period domain of Enriques surfaces by a product of suitable linear forms and then restricting it to the locus of Enriques surfaces corresponding to Hessian quartic surfaces.