On characteristic polynomials of automorphisms of Enriques surfaces (Q6081849)

Let \(f^*\) be an isometry of the numerical Néron-Severi lattice of a complex Enriques surface \(Y\), induced by an automoprhism \(f\in\mathrm{Aut}(Y)\) of \(Y\) and let \(p_f(x)\) be its characteristic polynomial. The authors in the present paper study the possible factors of the modulo-2 reduction of \(p_f(x)\) and show in their main theorem that \(p_f(x)\) is the product of (some of) the modulo-2 reductions of the cyclotomic polynomials \(\Phi_1 \Phi_3,\Phi_5,\Phi_7\) and \(\Phi_9\). In particular, each of the previous polynomial appears as factor of the modulo-2 reduction of \(p_f(x)\) for some automorphism \(f\) of an Enriques surface and examples are given. The authors also provide the algorithms than can be used to prove the results, based on McMullen's and Borcherds'methods. The main result is also used to prove results on the K3 surface \(X\) which is the 2-cover of \(Y\): in fact, given \(f\in\mathrm{Aut}(Y)\), let \(\tilde f\) be its non-unique lift to \(X\) and let \(N\) be the orthogonal complement of the sublattice of \(H^2(X,\mathbb Z)\) invariant for the cover involution. It is known by [\textit{Y. Matsumoto} et al., Math. Nachr. 291, No. 13, 2084--2098 (2018; Zbl 1401.14171)] that the restriction \(f_N\) of \(\tilde f^*\) to \(N\) has finite order and the order is a divisor of one among 120, 90, 84, 72, 56, 48. This result is sharpened in the present paper and the authors show that, on the one hand, some orders are not possible and, on the other hand, some other orders do appear as orders of some \(f_N\).