The surface of Gauss double points (Q2087691)

Let \(X\) be a very general quartic surface in \(\mathbb{P}^{3}_{\mathbb{C}}\). It is well-known that its bitangents describe a smooth algebraic surface \(S\) inside the Grassmannian \(\mathbb{G}(2,4)\) of lines in \(\mathbb{P}^{3}_{\mathbb{C}}\). If \(Q_{S}\) is the restriction to \(S\) of the universal bundle \(Q\) over \(\mathbb{G}(2,4)\), it is also well-known that inside its Grothendieck's projectivization \(\mathbb{P}(Q_{S})\) we can define the surface \(Y \subset \mathbb{P}(Q)\) of contact points associated to \(S\). Here a point \(y\in Y\) is a couple \(y=([l],p)\), where \(l\) is a bitangent line of \(X\) and \(p \in l\cap X\). Together with \(Y\) and \(S\) there is a third surface which naturally comes with the geometry of \(X\). To describe it, consider a point \(p \in X\) and denote by \(T_{p}X\) the projective tangent space of \(X\) at \(p\). We know that the closure of the loci of the points \(p\in X\) for which the hyperplane section \(X_{p}:=T_{p}X \cap X\) has geometrical genus strictly less than \(2\) is a \(1\)-dimensional subscheme \(C_{\mathrm{dou}}\) inside \(X\) which is called the node-couple curve. It turns our that for a general point \(p \in C_{\mathrm{dou}}\) there exists another unique singular point \(p'\in X_{p}\) such that \(T_{p}X = T_{p'}X\). Clearly both \(p,p' \in C_{\mathrm{dou}}\) and since \(p\neq p'\) there exists a unique line \(l_{p,p'} := \langle p,p'\rangle \subset \mathbb{P}^{3}_{\mathbb{C}}\) passing thru these points. Clearly \([l_{p,p'}] \in S \subset \mathbb{G}\). The new singular surface is the locus \(\Sigma_{\mathrm{dou}} \subset \mathbb{P}^{3}_{\mathbb{C}}\) obtained by the closure of the surface swept by lines of the form \(l_{p,p'}\), where \(p \in C_{\mathrm{dou}}\) is a general point. The projective bundle \(\mathbb{P}(Q_{S})\) is easily seen to coincide with the following incidence variety \(\{([l],p) \in S \times \mathbb{P}^{3}_{\mathbb{C}}, \, p \in l\}\). One of the most basic morphisms associated to the geometry of \(X\) is the forgetful one, namely: \[f :\, \mathbb{P}(Q_{S}) \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^{3}_{\mathbb{C}}, \quad ([l],p) \mapsto p.\] Denote by \(B(f) \hookrightarrow\mathbb{P}^{3}_{\mathbb{C}}\) its branch locus and by \(R(f) \hookrightarrow \mathbb{P}(Q_{S})\) its ramification locus. The main result of the paper under review can be formulated as follows. Main Theorem. If \(X\) is a very general quartic surface, then \(S\) and \(Y\) are smooth surfaces and \(C_{\mathrm{dou}}\), \(C_{\mathrm{dou}}^{\vee}\) are singular curves whose singularities are fully classified. The morphism \(f : \mathbb{P}(Q_{S}) \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^{3}\) is finite of degree \(12\). The almost ruled surface of Gauss double points \(\Sigma_{\mathrm{dou}}\) has degree \(160\) and osculates the quartic \(X\) along \(C_{\mathrm{dou}}\). It holds that \(B(f) = X \cup \Sigma_{\mathrm{dou}}\) and \(R(f) = Y \cup \Sigma\), where \(\Sigma\) is the ruled surface obtained by the pull-back of the natural morphism \(\pi_{S} : \mathbb{P}(Q_{S})\rightarrow S\) via the natural inclusion \(C \hookrightarrow S\). Moreover, the natural morphism \(f : \mathbb{P}(Q_{S}) \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^{3}_{\mathbb{C}}\) induces by restriction two morphisms \(\rho : Y \rightarrow X\) and \(\rho_{\mathrm{dou}} : \Sigma \rightarrow \Sigma_{\mathrm{dou}}\) of degree \(6\) and \(1\), respectively.