On deformations of the surfaces of bitangents to smooth quartic surfaces in $\mP^3$

Abstract

We prove that the surface $S(X)$ of bitangent lines of a general smooth quartic surface $X$ in $\mP^3$ has unobstructed deformations of dimension $20=h^1(S(X), T_{S(X)})$. In addition, we show that the space of infinitesimal embedded deformations of $X$ injects into the one of $S(X)$. Finally we prove that there is a natural birational map from the 20--dimensional moduli space of (polarised) double coverings of EPW--sextics to the moduli space of regular surfaces $S$ with $p_g=45$ and $K_S^2=360$ polarised with a very ample line bundle $H$ such that $H^2=40$, $h^0(S, H)=6$: the map sends a double covering of a EPW--sextic in $\mP^5$ to the surface of double points of the EPW--sextic.