A pencil of Enriques surfaces of index one with no section (Q1047625)

Monodromy and deformation-and-specialization techniques are used to answer some questions related to \textit{T. Graber, J. Harris, B. Mazur} and \textit{J. Starr} [Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 38, No. 5, 671--692 (2005; Zbl 1092.14062)]. The main result is a new proof of the existence of a pencil of Enriques surfaces without sections over certain algebraically closed field (in particular over the complex numbers). Moreover, it is proved that these surfaces have index 1. This last fact (and more generally the existence of separated closed points of degree 3 and 4 on the generic fibre of the pencil) is significant in view of the search of cohomological obstructions to the existence of a section, a problem posed by Hélène Esnault. With the same techniques the author can produce families of hypersurfaces which are used to complete the argument from [loc. cit.]. In the language of [loc. cit.], this result implies that given a normal, projective variety of dimension \(\geq 2\) there does not exist a family of curves in \(B\) which is, simultaneously for all integers \(n\), a witness family for relative dimension \(n\).