On the canonical map of surfaces with \(q \geq 6\) (Q763655)

The authors study the canonical system of irregular surfaces of general type, proving two main results. Firstly they prove a sharpening of the Castelnuovo inequality under the assumption that the canonical map is birational. The second result proven is the birationality of the canonical map of a surface with \(p_g=2q-3\), \(q\geq 6\) and free from fibrations over genus \(\geq 2\) curves. A great part of the paper is devoted to developing the technical tools, that consist in a study of rational surfaces of small degree and of the Albanese map of irregular surfaces, and in a detailed analysis of the canonical system, with particular attention given to the case of surfaces not admitting a fibration over a curve of genus \(\geq 2\).