On the classification of K3 surfaces with nine cusps

Abstract

By a K3-surface with nine cusps I mean a compact complex surface with nine isolated double points $A_2$, but otherwise smooth, such that its minimal desingularisation is a K3-surface. In an earlier paper I showd that each such surface is a quotient of a complex torus by a cyclic group of order three. Here I try to classify these $K3$-surfaces, using the period map for complex tori. In particular I show: A $K3$-surface with nine cusps carries polarizations only of degrees 0 or 2 modulo 6. This implies in particular that there is no quartic surface in projective three-space with nine cusps. (T. Urabe pointed out to me how to deduce this from a theorem of Nikulin.) In an appendix I give explicit equations of quartic surfaces in three-space with eight cusps.