Tritangents and their space sextics

Abstract

Two classical results in algebraic geometry are that the branch curve of a del Pezzo surface of degree 1 can be embedded as a space sextic curve in P3 and that every space sextic curve has exactly 120 tritangents corresponding to its odd theta characteristics. In this paper we revisit both results from the computational perspective. Specifically, we give an algorithm to construct space sextic curves that arise from blowing up P2 at eight points and provide algorithms to compute the 120 tritangents and their Steiner system of any space sextic. Furthermore, we develop efficient inverses to the aforementioned methods. We present an algorithm to either reconstruct the original eight points in P2 from a space sextic or certify that this is not possible. Moreover, we extend a construction of Lehavi [8] which recovers a space sextic from its tritangents and Steiner system. All algorithms in this paper have been implemented in magma.