Lifting involutions to ramified covers of Riemann surfaces (Q1423773)

Let \(H\) be a group of automorphisms of the genus \(g> 1\) compact Riemann surface \(Y\) such that the natural projection \(Y\to X= Y/H\) is a branched covering, and let \(Q\) be an involution of \(X\) which fixes some point. In the main result of the paper the authors derive necessary and sufficient conditions which determine when \(\sigma\) lifts to an automorphism of \(Y\). The statement of this theorem is technically complicated, but its proof is transparent and uses, essentially, the theory of covering spaces and some group theory, including the Reidemeister-Schreier method. The authors apply succesfully this criterion to the particular case where \(H\) is Abelian, \(X\) is hyperelliptic and a is its hyperelliptic involution. Assume the ramification indices corresponding to all non-Weierstrass points of \(X\) which are ramified in \(Y\) are relatively prime in pairs. Assume further that either each Weierstrass point of \(X\) is unramified in \(Y\) or each Weierstrass point of \(X\) has ramification index two in \(Y\) and the Sylow 2-subgroup of \(H\) is cyclic. Then \(\sigma\) lifts to an automorphism of \(Y\). This result answers a question stated by \textit{R. D. M. Accola} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 122, No. 2, 341--347 (1994; Zbl 0859.14012)] and completes the classical one which states that \(\sigma\) lifts if the covering \(Y\to X= Y/H\) is unramified, and the previous work of the second author [\textit{P. Turbek}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 125, No. 9, 2615--2625 (1997; Zbl 0942.30025)]. The method invented for the proof of the main theorem leads the authors to get a criterion for the lifting of order three automorphisms \(f\), and they apply it to the case where \(X\) is a trigonal surface, the covering \(Y\to X = Y/H\) is unramified and \(f\) is the trigonal automorphism of \(X\).