On birational automorphisms of double EPW-cubes (Q6962018)

An EPW cube is a certain degeneracy locus in the Grassmannian \(\operatorname{Gr}(3,6)\) determined by a Lagrangian subspace of \(\bigwedge^3({\mathbb C}^6)\). A double EPW cube is a specified double cover of this, which is a hyperkähler manifold of \(K3^{[3]}\) type: it is defined as long as the Lagrangian subspace does not lie in a certain divisor \(\Sigma\) of the Lagrangian Grassmannian, although if it lies in a second divisor \(\Gamma\) one must resolve some singularities of the double EPW cube first. \par This paper investigates the possible groups of automorphisms or birational automorphisms of these double EPW cubes, and of manifolds of \(K3^{3]}\) type more generally. In view of the Torelli theorem for hyperkähler manifolds, such questions reduce, in a not quite straightforward way, to questions about automorphisms of lattices. \par The first result gives a list of finite groups \(G\) that may be realised as stable symplectic birational automorphisms of some hyperkähler manifold of \(K3^{[3]}\) type. (Here ``stable'' means ``acting trivially on the discriminant group of the relevant lattice''.) The proof is an application of the result of Mongardi that characterises such groups as subgroups of the simple group \(\operatorname{Co}_1\), the automorphism group \(\operatorname{Co}_0\) of the Leech lattice modulo its centre, satisfying some extra conditions on their invariant sublattices. Using known descriptions of subgroups of \(\operatorname{Co}_0\) and extensive computation, the authors determine all groups satisfying these extra conditions. \par The second result describes polarised automorphisms of double EPW cubes and gives a (much shorter) list of groups that can act symplectically on double EPW cubes of maximal Picard rank: one of these arises only for the \(\Gamma\) case. The proofs here are more geometric, and similar in outline to the proofs of results of a similar character for other cases such as \(K3^{[2]}\) and OG10.