The field of moduli of plane curves

Abstract: It is a classical fact that an elliptic curve

E

over

is defined by a homogeneous polynomial in

3

variables with coefficients in

m a t h b b Q (j_{E})

, where

j_{E}

is the

j

-invariant of

E

, and

m a t h b b Q (j_{E})

is the field of moduli of

E

. We show that an analogous result holds for most smooth, plane curves of degree

d g e 4

in characteristic

0

, and more generally for cycles with finite automorphism groups. A particular case is that, if

d

is prime with

6

, then every smooth plane curve of degree

d

descends to a curve in

m a t h b b P^{2}

over the field of moduli.

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