Pfaffian representations of cubic threefolds

Abstract

Given a cubic hypersurface $X\subset {\mathbb{P}}^4$, we study the existence of Pfaffian representations of $X$, namely of $6\times 6$ skew-symmetric matrices of linear forms $M$ such that $X$ is defined by the equation $Pf(M)=0$. It was known that such a matrix always exists whenever $X$ is smooth. Here we prove that the same holds whenever $X$ is singular, hence that every cubic threefold is Pfaffian.

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Quadric surfaces in the Pfaffian hypersurface in ${\mathbb{P}}^{14}$