An Arithmetic Count of the Lines on a Smooth Cubic Surface

TL;DR

This paper develops an arithmetic count of lines on smooth cubic surfaces over arbitrary fields, generalizing classical complex and real counts using algebraic and homotopy-theoretic methods.

Contribution

It introduces an elementary Euler number theory in $ ext{A}^1$-homotopy, enabling arithmetic enumeration of geometric objects over arbitrary fields.

Findings

Sum of trace forms equals 15 minus 12 in GW(k)

Recovers classical counts over $ ext{C}$ and $ ext{R}$

Framework for future arithmetic enumerations

Abstract

We give an arithmetic count of the lines on a smooth cubic surface over an arbitrary field $k$, generalizing the counts that over $\mathbb{C}$ there are $27$ lines, and over $\mathbb{R}$ the number of hyperbolic lines minus the number of elliptic lines is $3$. In general, the lines are defined over a field extension $L$ and have an associated arithmetic type $\alpha$ in $L^*/(L^*)^2$. There is an equality in the Grothendieck-Witt group $\operatorname{GW}(k)$ of $k$ $$\sum_{\text{lines}} \operatorname{Tr}_{L/k} \langle \alpha \rangle = 15 \cdot \langle 1 \rangle + 12 \cdot \langle -1 \rangle, $$ where $\operatorname{Tr}_{L/k}$ denotes the trace $\operatorname{GW}(L) \to \operatorname{GW}(k)$. Taking the rank and signature recovers the results over $\mathbb{C}$ and $\mathbb{R}$. To do this, we develop an elementary theory of the Euler number in $\mathbb{A}^1$-homotopy theory for algebraic vector bundles. We expect that further arithmetic counts generalizing enumerative results in complex and real algebraic geometry can be obtained with similar methods.