The maximum number of lines lying on a \(K3\) quartic surface (Q522037)

It has been known since Segre's work [\textit{B. Segre}, Q. J. Math., Oxf. Ser. 14, 86--96 (1943; Zbl 0063.06860)] that a smooth quartic complex surface in \(\mathbb P^3\) contains at most 64 lines (although Segre's arguments contained some gaps which were filled in [\textit{S. Rams} and \textit{M. Schütt}, Math. Ann. 362, No. 1--2, 679--698 (2015; Zbl 1319.14042)] while at the same time extending the result to any field of characteristic \(\neq 2,3\)). The present paper generalizes these results to the situation where the quartic may admit isolated rational double points as siingularities (so that the minimal resolution is again a \(K3\) surface, hence the title `\(K3\) quartic surface'). (Worse singularities have been treated by \textit{V. González-Alonso} and \textit{S. Rams} in [Taiwanese J. Math. 20, No. 4, 769--785 (2016; Zbl 1357.14052)].) The main theorem of the paper is that Segre's bound of 64 lines continues to persist in the presence of isolated ADE singularities. In fact, non-smooth quartics with isolated ADE singularities tend to have substantially fewer lines. The current record seems to be 52 outside characteristics \(2,3,5\) (due to Degtyarev abstractly, and to Veniani with explicit equations [private correspondence, 2016]). Unlike previous work, the present paper does not use the flecnodal divisor at all, but it makes heavy use of elliptic fibrations. The main new technical ingredients of the paper are certain configurations of lines with rich geometry (which the author calls `twin lines'), and a mostly lattice-theoretic investigation of the situation where the surface does not admit a hyperplane splitting into 4 lines (called the `triangle-free' case, following Degtyarev).