The geometry of the Coble cubic and orbital degeneracy loci

Abstract

The Coble cubics were discovered more than a century ago in connection with genus two Riemann surfaces and theta functions. They have attracted renewed interest ever since. Recently, they were reinterpreted in terms of alternating trivectors in nine variables. Exploring this relation further, we show how the Hilbert scheme of pairs of points on an abelian surface, and also its Kummer fourfold, a very remarkable hyper-K\"ahler manifold, can very naturally be constructed in this context. Moreover, we explain how this perspective allows us to describe the group law of an abelian surface, in a strikingly similar way to how the group structure of a plane cubic can be defined in terms of its intersection with lines.