The twistor discriminant locus of the Fermat cubic (Q2353167)

In this paper, the author studies the Fermat cubic, i.e., the smooth projective algebraic surface in \({\mathbb C}P^3\) defined by the equation \(z_1^3+z_2^3+z_3^3+z_4^3=0\), making use of the twistor fibration \(\pi : {\mathbb C}P^3\rightarrow S^4\). Twistor theory is a tool to study projective algebraic surfaces up to orientation-preserving conformal (i.e., not projective, as usual) transformations. More precisely, let \(\Sigma\) be a non-singular degree-\(d\) projective algebraic surface in \({\mathbb C}P^3\). Restricting the twistor fibration to this surface, \(\Sigma\) gives rise to a \(d\)-sheeted branched cover of \(S^4\). By definition the \textit{discriminant locus of \(\Sigma\)} is a subset of \(S^4\) given by the branch locus of this cover. It is a conformal invariant of \(\Sigma\) and for \(d>2\) the discriminant locus acquires the structure of a real two-dimensional surface with isolated singularities (see Sections 4 and 5). The main result of the paper is the identification of the topological type and the full orientation-preserving conformal symmetry group of the discriminant locus of the Fermat cubic (see Theorem 8.1).