On the ample cone of a rational surface with an anticanonical cycle

Abstract: Let $Y$ be a smooth rational surface and let $D$ be a cycle of rational curves on $Y$ which is an anticanonical divisor, i.e. an element of $|-K_Y|$. Looijenga studied the geometry of such surfaces $Y$ in case $D$ has at most five components and identified a geometrically significant subset $R$ of the divisor classes of square -2 orthogonal to the components of $D$. Motivated by recent work of Gross, Hacking, and Keel on the global Torelli theorem for pairs $(Y,D)$, we attempt to generalize some of Looijenga's results in case $D$ has more than five components. In particular, given an integral isometry $f$ of $H^2(Y)$ which preserves the classes of the components of $D$, we investigate the relationship between the condition that $f$ preserves the "generic" ample cone of $Y$ and the condition that $f$ preserves the set $R$.