Birational rigidity of quartic three-folds with a double point of rank 3

Abstract

We prove that a general three-dimensional quartic $V$ in the complex projective space ${\mathbb P}^4$, the only singularity of which is a double point of rank 3, is a birationally rigid variety. Its group of birational self-maps is, up to the finite subgroup of biregular automorphisms, a free product of 25 cyclic groups of order 2. It follows that the complement to the set of birationally rigid factorial quartics with terminal singularities is of codimension at least 3 in the natural parameter space.