Determinantal representations of the cubic discriminant

Abstract

We compute and study two determinantal representations of the discriminant of a cubic quaternary form. The first representation is the Chow form of the $2$-uple embedding of $\mathbb{P}^3$ and is computed as the Pfaffian of the Chow form of a rank 2 Ulrich bundle on this Veronese variety. We then consider the determinantal representation described by Nanson. We investigate the geometric nature of cubic surfaces whose discriminant matrices satisfy certain rank conditions. As a special case of interest, we use certain minors of this matrix to suggest equations vanishing on the locus of $k$-nodal cubic surfaces.