Universal torsors of del Pezzo surfaces and homogeneous spaces (Q2370619)

The main object of the paper under review is a smooth del Pezzo surface \(S_r\) of degree \(9-r\) defined over an algebraically closed field \(k\) of characteristic zero. After Manin discovered that the Picard lattice of \(S_r\) contains a root system \(R_r\) of rank \(r\) (\(r\geq 3\)), it has been a general feeling that this is a trace of some deeper relationship between rational surfaces and linear algebraic groups (or Lie algebras). An explicit form of such a relationship, at the level of torsors over del Pezzo surfaces, was suggested by Batyrev in 1990's. More precisely, his conjecture states that the universal torsor \(\mathcal T\) over \(S_r\) can be equivariantly (with respect to the action of the Néron-Severi torus of \(S_r\)) embedded, as an open set, into the affine cone \(H_r\) over the flag variety \(G_r/P_r\). Here \(G_r\) stands for the simply connected semisimple algebraic group of type \(R_r\); \(P_r\) is the maximal parabolic subgroup defined by the root \(\alpha_r\), which is to be erased from the Dynkin diagram when passing from \(R_r\) to \(R_{r-1}\); \(H_r\) is the \(G_r\)-orbit of the weight space to \(\omega_r\), the fundamental weight dual to the root \(\alpha_r\). In the paper under review, the author proves this conjecture for \(r=6,7\). The cases \(r=4\) and \(5\) were treated earlier by \textit{A.~N.~Skorobogatov} [Ann. Fac. Sci. Toulouse Math. 2, 429--440 (1993; Zbl 0811.14020)] and \textit{O.~N.~Popov} (unpublished thesis), respectively. The author's method follows the approach by \textit{V.~V.~Batyrev} and \textit{O.~N.~Popov} [Prog. Math. 226, 85--103 (2004; Zbl 1075.14035)] and is based on considering the Cox ring of \(S_r\) (whose spectrum contains \(\mathcal T\) as an open subset), identifying its generators with weights, and comparing the relations with the equations of \(G_r/P_r\). Note that recently \textit{V. V. Serganova} and \textit{A. N. Skorobogatov} invented a different proof for all \(4\leq r\leq 7\) based on representation theory of Lie algebras [Algebra Number Theory 1, No. 4, 393--419 (2007; Zbl 1170.14026), see also \url{arXiv:0611737}].