Introduction to K3 Surfaces

Lecture given by Evgeny Shinder, notes taken by Edward Pearce, 30/09/2019, 3pm-4:30pm at The University of Sheffield, based on Daniel Huybrechts' book Lectures on K3 surfaces.

Calabi-Yau varieties and canonical classes

Definition (CY variety)

A (generalized) Calabi-Yau variety is a variety \(X\) with a non-vanishing global holomorphic top-form \(\sigma\in\Omega_{X}^{n}(X)\), where \(\Omega_{X}^{1}=T^{\ast}\) is the cotangent bundle and \(\Omega_{X}^{j}=\bigwedge^{j}\Omega_{X}^{1}\), and \(n=\dim X\)

More generally, for any \(X\), let \(\sigma\) be a meromorphic top-form on \(X\), and let

\[\mathrm{div}(\sigma) = \sum_{D\subset X}\mathrm{ord}_{D}(\sigma)\cdot[D]\in\mathrm{Div}(X)\]

Where the sum is over irreducible divisors \(D\) in \(X\). Then \(\mathrm{div}(\sigma)\) is called a canonical divisor.

Exercise

If \(\sigma'\) is another form, then \(\mathrm{div}(\sigma') - \mathrm{div}(\sigma)\) is a principal divisor, i.e. a divisor of a meromorphic function. Hence \(\mathrm{div}(\sigma)\) is well-defined in \(\mathrm{Pic}(X)=\mathrm{Div}(X)/\{\text{principal divisors}\}\). We write \(K_{X}=\mathrm{div}(\sigma)\).

The sheaf (or bundle) \(\omega_{X}=\Omega_{X}^{n}\) is called the canonical line bundle.

In this language \(X\) is Calabi-Yau if and only if \(K_{X}=0\in\mathrm{Pic}(X)\) if and only if \(\omega_{X}\cong\mathcal{O}_{X}\).

Example: Curves

Let \(X\) be a curve and \(g=g(X)\) be its geometric genus. Then \(\Omega_{X}^{1}=\omega_{X}\), \(\Gamma(X, \Omega_{X}^{1})=\mathbb{C}^{3}\), and \(\deg K_{X}=2g-2\).

Calabi-Yau Surfaces

There are two types of CY surfaces: abelian surfaces and K3 surfaces.

Definition (K3 Surface)

A K3 surface is a CY surface with \(H^{1}(S, \mathbb{Z})=0\) (in this setting we can replace the last condition by \(\pi_{1}(S)=0\) simply connected, or \(H^{1}(S, \mathbb{Z})=0\).

Examples of K3 surfaces

Cohomology and Hodge structure

Horizontal rows in the bottom half describe the decomposition \(H^{m}(X, \mathbb{C})=\bigoplus_{p=0}^{m} H^{p, m-p}(X)\) where \(m\) runs from \(0\) to \(n\).

\[[[h^{n,n}],\ldots, [h^{0,n}, h^{1,n-1}, \ldots, h^{n-1,1}, h^{n,0}], \ldots, [h^{0,1}, h^{1,0}], [h^{0,0}]]\]

Examples of Hodge diamonds

For \(X\) a curve of genus \(g\), the Hodge diamond is \([[1], [g, g], [1]]\)

For \(X\) a connected surface, the Hodge diamond is \([[1], [q, q], [p, h, p], [q, q], [1]]\) where \(q=h^{1,0}\) is the number of 1-forms on \(X\) and \(p=h^{2,0}\) is the number of 2-forms on \(X\) and \(h=h^{1,1}\).

For \(A=E\times E'\), \([[1],[2,2],[1,4,1],[2,2],[1]]\).

For \(S\) a K3 surface, \([[1],[0,0],[1,20,1],[0,0],[1]]\).

For \(X=\mathbb{P}^{2}\), \([[1],[0,0],[0,1,0],[0,0],[1]]\).

For \(X=\mathbb{P}^{1}\times\mathbb{P}^{1}\), \([[1],[0,0],[0,2,0],[0,0],[1]]\).

To show that \(h^{1,1}=20\) for a K3 surface, we need to apply Noether's formula.

Noether's formula

For example, for \(X=\mathbb{P}^{2}\), \(\chi(X, \mathcal{O}_{X})=1\), \(K_{X}=-3H\) where \(H\) is the class of a line, \(K_{X}^{2}=9\), and \(\chi_{\text{top}}(X)=3\).

Exercise: Show that \(h^{1,1}=20\) for a K3 surface.

Construction of K3 surfaces

Computing canonical classes

Exercise: Verify the adjunction formula for \(\mathbb{P}^{n-1}\subset\mathbb{P}^{n}\).

Example

For \(X\subset\mathbb{P}^{2}\) a degree \(d\) curve, \(\omega_{X}=\mathcal{O}(-3-d)\).

Exercise: Deduce the genus-degree formula \(g=\frac{(d-1)(d-2)}{2}\)

Example

For \(S\subset\mathbb{P}^{3}\) a degree \(d\) surface, \(\omega_{S}=\mathcal{O}(-4-d)\). Hence \(S\) is Calabi-Yau if and only if \(d=4\), \(\mathcal{O}(1)=\mathcal{O}(H)\), and \(H^{1}(S, \mathcal{O}_{S})=0\) by cohomology long exact sequence.

Exercise: Classify all K3 surfaces which are complete intersections of hypersurfaces. That is, \(S=H_{1}\cap\ldots\cap H_{r}\subset\mathbb{P}^{r+2}\), where \(H_{i}\) is a hypersurface of degree \(d_{i}\). Hint: Induction on adjunction to get equations for \(d_{1},\ldots,d_{r}\).

Polarizations

Given \(S\subset\mathbb{P}^{N}\), let \(H\in\mathrm{Pic}(S)\) be the hyperplane section divisor. Such an \(H\) is called a polarization of \(S\).

Example

Let \(S\subset\mathbb{P}^{3}\) be a quartic surface, and \(H\subset S\) a quartic curve obtained as \(H=S\cap\mathbb{P}^{2}\subset\mathbb{P}^{3}\), then \(H^{2}=4\).

More generally, a polarization is the class of an ample divisor.

Example

Let \(S\to\mathbb{P}^{2}\) be a 2-to-1 cover ramified in a degree 6 curve (sextic), then Riemann-Hurwitz formula and the vanishing of \(H^{1}(S, \mathcal{O}_{S})\) implies that \(S\) is a K3 surface, since \(K_{S}=\mathcal{O}(-3)\bigotimes\mathcal{O}(\frac{6}{2})=\mathcal{O}(S)\).

K3 in other categories

Definition (Analytic K3 surface)

A complex-analytic K3 surface is a compact analytic surface such that \(\omega_{S}\cong\mathcal{O}_{S}\) and \(H^{1}(S, \mathcal{O}_{S})=0\).

Remark: There exist many more analytic K3 surfaces than algebraic K3 surfaces.

Example

A complex torus \(A=\mathbb{C}^{2}/\Lambda\), \(\Lambda\cong\mathbb{Z}^{4}\). Note: most of these are not algebraic.

Let \(S'A/\pm\), i.e. quotient out 2-torsion points, that is, points (equivalence classes) for which \(\bar{z}=-\bar{z}\), or equivalently \(2\bar{z}=0\). This has 16 ordinary double points. Let \(S\to S'\) be the blow up of these ordinary double points, then \(S\) has \(\omega_{S}=0\) and \(H^{1}(S, \mathcal{O}_{S})=0\), so \(S\) is a K3 surface.

Hence \(S\) is algebraic if and only if \(A\) is algebraic, where algebraic means it can be embedded in \(\mathbb{P}^{N}\) for some \(N\). This \(S\) is called a Kunicov K3 surface.

Definition (K3 surface over an arbitrary field)

The same definition over an arbitrary field \(k\) gives K3 surfaces over \(k\). Usually we will work with complex algebraic projective K3 surfaces.

Let \(\rho=\mathrm{rank}\,\mathrm{Pic}(S)\) noting that \(\mathrm{Pic}(S)\) is a torsion-free finitely generated abelian group.

Definition (Noncommutative K3 surfaces)

Starting from \(S\), consider the bounded derived category \(\mathcal{D}^{b}(S)\) of \(S\) and the maps to:

  1. An abelian category \(\mathcal{A}\) which is a K3 category with \(\mathcal{S}_{\mathcal{A}}=[2]\) where \(\mathcal{S}_{\mathcal{A}}\) is the Serre functor (autoequivalence) on \(\mathcal{A}\) and \([2]\) is obtained by applying the triangulated structure autoequivalence \([1]\) on \(\mathcal{A}\) twice.
  2. The bounded derived category \(\mathcal{D}^{b}(S, \beta)\) where \(\beta\in\mathrm{Br}(S)\) is an element of the (braid? Brauer?) group(?) of \(S\).