Non-Emptiness of the Height Strata of the Moduli Stack of Polarized K3 Surfaces

Abstract

In this paper we consider the following problem: For a given natural number $d$ and a prime $p$ determine all Newton polygons of polarized K3 surfaces of degree 2d over fields of characteristic $p$. This is an analogue of the Manin problem for Newton polygons of abelian varieties. This question is equivalent to determining the non-empty height strata of the moduli stack $\M_{2d}\otimes \F_p$ of K3 surfaces with a polarization of degree 2d over $\F_p$. We prove here that if $d$ is large enough and prime to $p$, then the height strata of $\M_{2d}\otimes \F_p$ are non-empty.