The geometry of Ulrich bundles on del Pezzo surfaces

Given a smooth del Pezzo surface $X_d \subseteq \mathbb{P}^{d}$ of degree $d,$ we show that a smooth irreducible curve $C$ on $X_d$ represents the first Chern class of an Ulrich bundle on $X_d$ if and only if its kernel bundle $M_C$ admits a generalized theta-divisor. This result is applied to produce new examples of complete intersection curves with semistable kernel bundle, and also combined with work of Farkas-Musta\c{t}\v{a}-Popa to relate the existence of Ulrich bundles on $X_d$ to the Minimal Resolution Conjecture for curves lying on $X_d.$ In particular, we show that a smooth irreducible curve $C$ of degree $3r$ lying on a smooth cubic surface $X_3$ represents the first Chern class of an Ulrich bundle on $X_3$ if and only if the Minimal Resolution Conjecture holds for $C.$