Concurrent lines on del Pezzo surfaces of degree one

Abstract

Let $X$ be a del Pezzo surface of degree one over an algebraically closed field $k$, and let $K_X$ be its canonical divisor. The morphism $\phi$ induced by the linear system $|-2K_X|$ realizes $X$ as a double cover of a cone in ${\mathbb{P}}^3$ that is ramified over a smooth curve of degree 6. The surface $X$ contains 240 curves with negative self-intersection, called exceptional curves. We prove that for a point~$P$ on the ramification curve of $\phi$, at most sixteen exceptional curves go through~$P$ in characteristic $2$, and at most ten in all other characteristics. Moreover, we prove that for a point $Q$ outside the ramification curve of $\phi$, at most twelve exceptional curves go through $Q$ in characteristic $3$, and at most ten in all other characteristics. We show that these upper bounds are sharp in all cases except possibly in characteristic 5 outside the ramification curve.

30 pages, 2 ancillary files with magma code. This is the accepted version, which (after editing by the journal) is published in Mathematics of Computation