Normal forms and Tyurin degenerations of K3 surfaces polarized by a rank 18 lattice

Abstract

We study projective Type II degenerations of K3 surfaces polarized by a certain rank 18 lattice, where the central fiber consists of a pair of rational surfaces glued along a smooth elliptic curve. Given such a degeneration, one may construct other degenerations of the same kind by flopping curves on the central fiber, but the degenerations obtained from this process are not usually projective. We construct a series of examples which are all projective and which are all related by flopping single curves from one component of the central fiber to the other. Moreover, we show that this list is complete, in the sense that no other flops are possible. The components of the central fibers obtained include weak del Pezzo surfaces of all possible degrees. This shows that projectivity need not impose any meaningful constraints on the surfaces that can arise as components in Type II degenerations.