Murphy’s law in algebraic geometry: Badly-behaved deformation spaces

We consider the question: “How bad can the deformation space of an object be?” The answer seems to be: “Unless there is some a priori reason otherwise, the deformation space may be as bad as possible.” We show this for a number of important moduli spaces. More precisely, every singularity of finite type over ? (up to smooth parameters) appears on: the Hilbert scheme of curves in projective space; and the moduli spaces of smooth projective general-type surfaces (or higher-dimensional varieties), plane curves with nodes and cusps, stable sheaves, isolated threefold singularities, and more. The objects themselves are not pathological, and are in fact as nice as can be: the curves are smooth, the surfaces are automorphism-free and have very ample canonical bundle, the stable sheaves are torsion-free of rank 1, the singularities are normal and Cohen-Macaulay, etc. This justifies Mumford’s philosophy that even moduli spaces of well-behaved objects should be arbitrarily bad unless there is an a priori reason otherwise. Thus one can construct a smooth curve in projective space whose deformation space has any given number of components, each with any given singularity type, with any given non-reduced behavior. Similarly one can give a surface over $\mathbb{F}_{p}We consider the question: “How bad can the deformation space of an object be?” The answer seems to be: “Unless there is some a priori reason otherwise, the deformation space may be as bad as possible.” We show this for a number of important moduli spaces. More precisely, every singularity of finite type over ℤ (up to smooth parameters) appears on: the Hilbert scheme of curves in projective space; and the moduli spaces of smooth projective general-type surfaces (or higher-dimensional varieties), plane curves with nodes and cusps, stable sheaves, isolated threefold singularities, and more. The objects themselves are not pathological, and are in fact as nice as can be: the curves are smooth, the surfaces are automorphism-free and have very ample canonical bundle, the stable sheaves are torsion-free of rank 1, the singularities are normal and Cohen-Macaulay, etc. This justifies Mumford’s philosophy that even moduli spaces of well-behaved objects should be arbitrarily bad unless there is an a priori reason otherwise. Thus one can construct a smooth curve in projective space whose deformation space has any given number of components, each with any given singularity type, with any given non-reduced behavior. Similarly one can give a surface over that lifts to ℤ/p⁷ but not ℤ/p⁸. (Of course the results hold in the holomorphic category as well.) It is usually difficult to compute deformation spaces directly from obstruction theories. We circumvent this by relating them to more tractable deformation spaces via smooth morphisms. The essential starting point is Mn?v’s universality theorem. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000) 14B12, 14C05, 14J10, 14H50, 14B07, 14N20, 14D22, 14B05     

On moduli spaces of sheaves on K3 or abelian surfaces

We investigate the moduli spaces of one- and two-dimensional sheaves on projective K3 and abelian surfaces that are semistable with respect to a nongeneral ample divisor with regard to the symplectic resolvability. We can exclude the existence of new examples of projective irreducible symplectic manifolds lying birationally over components of the moduli spaces of one-dimensional semistable sheaves on K3 surfaces, and over components of many of the moduli spaces of two-dimensional sheaves on K3 surfaces, in particular, of those for rank two sheaves.     

Some Remarks about the FM-partners of <Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis>3 Surfaces with Picard Numbers 1 and 2

In this paper we describe some results about K3 surfaces with Picard number 1 and 2. In particular, we give a new simple proof of a theorem due to Oguiso which shows that, given an integer N, there is a K3 surface with Picard number 2 and at least N non-isomorphic FM-partners. We describe also the Mukai vectors of the moduli spaces associated to the FM-partners of K3 surfaces with Picard number 1.     

Twisted Stability and Fourier–Mukai Transform I

In this paper, we consider the preservation of stability by using the notion of twisted stability. As applications, (1) we show that moduli spaces of stable sheaves on K3 and abelian surfaces are irreducible and (2) we compute Hodge polynomials of some moduli spaces of stable sheaves on Enriques surfaces.     

Symplectic Automorphisms and the Picard Group of a K3 Surface

We consider the symplectic action of a finite group G on a K3 surface X. The Picard group of X has a primitive sublattice determined by G. We show how to compute the rank and discriminant of this sublattice. We then investigate the classification of symplectic actions by a fixed finite group, using moduli spaces of K3 surfaces with symplectic G-action.     

Moduli spaces of stable sheaves on abelian surfaces

In this paper, we consider basic problems on moduli spaces of stable sheaves on abelian surfaces. Our main assumption is the primitivity of the associated Mukai vector. We determine the deformation types, albanese maps, Bogomolov factors and their weight 2 Hodge structures. We also discuss the deformation types of moduli spaces of stable sheaves on K3 surfaces. Received: 28 February 2000 / Revised version: 15 September 2000 / Published online: 24 September 2001     

Stability and Fourier–Mukai transforms on elliptic fibrations

We systematically develop Bridgeland's [7] and Bridgeland–Maciocia's [10] techniques for studying elliptic fibrations, and identify criteria that ensure 2-term complexes are mapped to torsion-free sheaves under a Fourier–Mukai transform. As an application, we construct an open immersion from a moduli of stable complexes to a moduli of Gieseker stable sheaves on elliptic threefolds. As another application, we give various 1–1 correspondences between fibrewise semistable torsion-free sheaves and codimension-1 sheaves on Weierstrass surfaces.     

A finite group acting on the moduli space of K3 surfaces

We consider the natural action of a finite group on the moduli space of polarized K3 surfaces which induces a duality defined by Mukai for surfaces of this type. We show that the group permutes polarized Fourier-Mukai partners of polarized K3 surfaces and we study the divisors in the fixed loci of the elements of this finite group.

     

Generalized Shioda–Inose structures on K3 surfaces

In this note, we study the action of finite groups of symplectic automorphisms on K3 surfaces which yield quotients birational to generalized Kummer surfaces. For each possible group, we determine the Picard number of the K3 surface admitting such an action and for singular K3 surfaces we show the uniqueness of the associated abelian surface. Received: 9 April 1998 / Revised version: 17 July 1998     

Rational Lagrangian fibrations on punctual Hilbert schemes of K3 surfaces

A rational Lagrangian fibration f on an irreducible symplectic variety V is a rational map which is birationally equivalent to a regular surjective morphism with Lagrangian fibers. By analogy with K3 surfaces, it is natural to expect that a rational Lagrangian fibration exists if and only if V has a divisor D with Bogomolov–Beauville square 0. This conjecture is proved in the case when V is the Hilbert scheme of d points on a generic K3 surface S of genus g under the hypothesis that its degree 2g−2 is a square times 2d−2. The construction of f uses a twisted Fourier–Mukai transform which induces a birational isomorphism of V with a certain moduli space of twisted sheaves on another K3 surface M, obtained from S as its Fourier–Mukai partner.     

Symplectic structures on moduli spaces of framed sheaves on surfaces

We provide generalizations of the notions of Atiyah class and Kodaira-Spencer map to the case of framed sheaves. Moreover, we construct closed two-forms on the moduli spaces of framed sheaves on surfaces. As an application, we define a symplectic structure on the moduli spaces of framed sheaves on some birationally ruled surfaces.     

Vector bundles with a fixed determinant on an irreducible nodal curve

LetM be the moduli space of generalized parabolic bundles (GPBs) of rankr and degree dona smooth curveX. LetM _−L be the closure of its subset consisting of GPBs with fixed determinant− L. We define a moduli functor for whichM _−L is the coarse moduli scheme. Using the correspondence between GPBs onX and torsion-free sheaves on a nodal curveY of whichX is a desingularization, we show thatM _−L can be regarded as the compactified moduli scheme of vector bundles onY with fixed determinant. We get a natural scheme structure on the closure of the subset consisting of torsion-free sheaves with a fixed determinant in the moduli space of torsion-free sheaves onY. The relation to Seshadri-Nagaraj conjecture is studied.     

Fano varieties of cubic fourfolds containing a plane

We prove that the Fano variety of lines of a generic cubic fourfold containing a plane is isomorphic to a moduli space of twisted stable complexes on a K3 surface. On the other hand, we show that the Fano varieties are always birational to moduli spaces of twisted stable coherent sheaves on a K3 surface. The moduli spaces of complexes and of sheaves are related by wall-crossing in the derived category of twisted sheaves on the corresponding K3 surface.     

Elliptic K3 Surfaces with Abelian and Dihedral Groups of Symplectic Automorphisms

We analyze K3 surfaces admitting an elliptic fibration ? and a finite group G of symplectic automorphisms preserving this elliptic fibration. We construct the quotient elliptic fibration ?/G comparing its properties to the ones of ?.

We show that if ? admits an n-torsion section, its quotient by the group of automorphisms induced by this section admits again an n-torsion section, and we describe the coarse moduli space of K3 surfaces with a given finite group contained in the Mordell–Weil group.

Considering automorphisms coming from the base of the fibration, we find the Mordell–Weil lattice of a fibration described by Kloosterman, and we find K3 surfaces with dihedral groups as group of symplectic automorphisms. We prove the isometries between lattices described by the author and Sarti and lattices described by Shioda and by Greiss and Lam.     

Representability for some moduli stacks of framed sheaves

 We prove that certain moduli functors (and stacks) for framed torsion-free sheaves on complex projective surfaces are represented by schemes. Received: 30 October 2001 / Revised version: 27 March 2002     

K3 surfaces with Picard number three and canonical vector heights

In this paper we construct the first known explicit family of K3 surfaces defined over the rationals that are proved to have geometric Picard number . This family is dense in one of the components of the moduli space of all polarized K3 surfaces with Picard number at least . We also use an example from this family to fill a gap in an earlier paper by the first author. In that paper, an argument for the nonexistence of canonical vector heights on K3 surfaces of Picard number was given, based on an explicit surface that was not proved to have Picard number . We redo the computations for one of our surfaces and come to the same conclusion.