Log surfaces of Picard rank one from four lines in the plane (Q2326952)

In this nicely written paper, the authors study certain log surfaces with Picard number one obtained by blow-ups and contractions of the four-line configuration in the projective plane. The main construction goes as follows. Consider a set \(\{L_{1}, \dots, L_{4}\}\) of four general lines in the projective planes. Let \(f : Y \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^{2}\) be a sequence of blow-ups at the points of intersection between the curves which are either strict preimages of \(L_k\) or are exceptional divisors \(E_j\). One will call these curves the visible curves. Let \(g : Y \rightarrow X\) be a contraction of some of the visible curves to a normal surface \(X\). The images \(B_i\) of the non-contracted visible curves are called survivors. Now we consider pairs \((X, B)\), where \(B = \sum_{i} b_i B_i\) is a linear combination of survivors. By a result due to the first author we know that if \(X\) is a projective normal surface and \(B = \sum_{i} b_i B_i\) an effective \(\mathbb{R}\)-divisor with coefficients in a DCC set, i.e., one satisfying the descending chain condition, such that \((X,B)\) has log canonical singularities and \(K_{X}+B\) is ample, then the set of volumes \((K_X + B)^2\) is also a DCC set and thus attains the absolute minimum, a positive real number. The main result of the paper provides simple formulas for the basic numerical invariants of a singular surface which allows to establish the smallest positive volume and the smallest accumulation point of volumes of log canonical surfaces obtained in this way. The technical core of the paper is an interesting explicit formula for \((K_X + B)^2\) -- it is based on the so-called weight vectors of visible curves and weight matrices of surfaces (see Theorem 4.2 therein).