XI—The Identification of Klein's Quartic

Abstract

SummaryThere is a mode of specialising a quartic polynomial which causes a binary quartic to become equianharmonic and a ternary quartic to become a Klein quartic, admitting a group of 168 linear self-transformations. The six relations which must be satisfied by the coefficients of the ternary quartic were given by Coble forty years ago, but their true significance was never suspected and they have remained until now an isolated curiosity. In § 2 we give, in terms of a quadric and a Veronese surface, the geometrical interpretation of the six relations; we also give, in terms of the adjugate of a certain matrix, their algebraical interpretation. Both these interpretations make it abundantly clear that this set of relations specialising a ternary quartic has analogues for quartic polynomials in any number of variables, and point unmistakably to what these analogues are.That a ternary quartic is, when so specialised, a Klein quartic is proved in §§ 4–6. The proof bifurcates after (5.3); one branch leads instantly to the standard form of the Klein quartic while the other leads to another form which, on applying a known test, is found also to represent a Klein quartic. One or two properties of the curve follow from this new form of its equation. In §§ 8–10 some properties of a Veronese surface are established which are related to known properties of plane quartic curves; and these considerations lead to a discussion, in § 11, of certain hexads of points associated with a Klein curve.