Rational surfaces with a non‐arithmetic automorphism group

Abstract In [ Algebraic surfaces and hyperbolic geometry , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012], Totaro gave examples of a K3 surface such that its automorphism group is not commensurable with an arithmetic group, answering a question of Mazur in Section 7 of [Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 29 (1993), no. 1, 14–50]. We give examples of rational surfaces with the same property. Our examples are Looijenga pairs, that is, there is a connected singular nodal curve such that .