Real Cubic Surfaces and Real Hyperbolic Geometry

Abstract

The moduli space of stable real cubic surfaces is the quotient of real hyperbolic four-space by a discrete, nonarithmetic group. The volume of the moduli space is 37\pi^2/1080 in the metric of constant curvature -1. Each of the five connected components of the moduli space can be described as the quotient of real hyperbolic four-space by a specific arithmetic group. We compute the volumes of these components.