Twisted cubics on cubic fourfolds

Abstract

We construct a new twenty-dimensional family of projective eight-dimensional irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifolds: the compactified moduli space M_3(Y) of twisted cubics on a smooth cubic fourfold Y that does not contain a plane is shown to be smooth and to admit a contraction M_3(Y) -> Z(Y) to a projective eight-dimensional symplectic manifold Z(Y). The construction is based on results on linear determinantal representations of singular cubic surfaces.