Classification of Du Val del Pezzo surfaces of Picard rank one in characteristic two and three (Q6054783)

Del Pezzo surfaces are projective surfaces with ample anti-canonical line bundle. In this article, the authors study del Pezzo surfaces with du Val (eq. ADE or canonical singularities) over an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(p \geq 0\), with a special attention to the case of characteristic \(p=2\) and \(3\). The paper contains two main result. The first theorem (Theorem 1.1) is a classification of the type of singularities appearing on du Val del Pezzo surfaces of Picard rank 1 in all characteristic. The classification closely parallels that of characteristic 0, with main differences arising when \(p=2\) and \(3\), requiring a more detailed analysis. The second result concerns the singularities of a general element of the anticanonical linear systems. There are examples of singular del Pezzo surfaces whose general member of the anticanonical linear systems are cuspidal cubics in characteristic \(2\) and \(3\). The authors demonstrate that such occurrences are exclusive to non-ordinary del Pezzo surfaces. Specifically, Theorem 1.3 shows that if a del Pezzo surface with du Val singularities is globally \(F\)-split, then the general anti-canonical member is smooth.