On regular surfaces of general type with \(p_g=3\) and non-birational bicanonical map (Q1579033)

For most projective surfaces \(S\) of general type, the map \(\varphi_{2K}\) defined by the bicanonical linear series \(|2K|\) is birational. There are exceptions, like surfaces containing a pencil of curves of genus \(2\), which are called ``standard examples''. A classification of surfaces of general type with \(\varphi_{2K}\) non birational is not yet completely known. The authors and P. Francia classified all non standard examples with geometric genus \(p_g\) at least \(4\), while the classification of examples with \(p_g=3\) and irregularity \(q>0\) was achieved by the authors and F. Catanese. The authors complete here the classification of surfaces of general type with \(p_g=3\) and \(\varphi_{2K}\) non birational, taking care of the regular case. It turns out that the only non-standard exceptions are either a specialization of irregular exceptions, or double planes branched along octic curves, or surfaces with \(K^2=8\), described in the paper. The classification is achieved by a careful examination of the rational map induced by the canonical series \(|K|\), which turns out to be not composed with a pencil in all non-standard examples.