Irreducibility of Hurwitz spaces of coverings with one special fiber and monodromy group a Weyl group of type \(D_d\) (Q2480757)

Let \(H_Y\) be the Hurwitz space which parameterizes coverings \(f: X\to Y\) of projective curves, whose monodromy group is the Weyl group \(D_d\) and the branching is simple at every ramification point, except possibly one. The author proves that \(H_Y\) is irreducible. The result extends a previous theorem by \textit{R. Biggers} and \textit{M. Fried} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 295, 59--70 (1986; Zbl 0601.14022)], who consider the case where the branching is simple at every ramification point. The proof is achieved by considering first the case \(Y=\mathbb P^1\), then extending to the general case.