A characterization of double covers of curves in terms of the ample cone of second symmetric product (Q949642)

Let \(C\) be a smooth integral algebraic curve of genus \(g \geq 2\), \(C^{(2)}\) the second symmetric product of \(C\), and \(\chi\) and \(\delta\) the fibre and the diagonal numerical classes, respectively, in the Néron-Severi space \(N^1(C^{(2)})_{\mathbb{R}}\). In this paper the author investigates the restriction of the nef cone \(\text{Nef}(C^{(2)})\) on the plane spanned by \(\chi\) and \(\delta\). Let \(\tau(C) := \inf \{ \mu \geq 0 \mid (\mu + 1)\chi - (\delta/2) \text{ is nef on } C^{(2)} \}\). Among many other results, the author proves the following. {Theorem.} Let \(k\) be a nonnegative integer. If \(C\) is a smooth integral curve of genus \(g > \max \{2 k + 1, 4 k - 3\}\) then \(\tau(C) \geq g - k\) if and only if there exists a smooth integral curve \(H\) of genus \(q \leq k/2\) such that \(C\) is a double covering of \(H\). Furthermore, in this case the curve \(H\) is unique up to isomophisms adn \(\tau(C) = g - 2q\).