Symplectic Lefschetz fibrations of curves as gonal coverings (Q2391854)

The present paper shows that every symplectic Lefschetz fibration (SLF) with fiber genus \(g>3\) admits a finite simple branched covering branched in a symplectic submanifold. The origin of this work is \textit{B. Siebert} and \textit{G. Tian}'s previous work. They showed in [Commun. Contemp. Math. 1, No. 2, 255--280 (1999; Zbl 0948.57018)] that every hyperelliptic SLF over \(S^2\) is turned into a two-fold covering over a rational ruled surface branched in a symplectic submanifold. This study gives the classification of \(g=2\) Lefschetz fibrations, because the genus \(g=2\) mapping classes are all hyperelliptic. The hyperellipticity condition, however, is very restrictive in the full mapping class group in general. The theme of this paper is to establish a general theory as a subsequent work for Siebert and Tian. Siebert and Tian used the blow-up for deformations, while in the present paper the authors use a branched cover over the moduli space \(\overline{\mathcal M}_g\) of curves. In order to construct branched coverings, the authors use general coverings with degree \(d=\lfloor\frac{g+3}{2}\rfloor\). These give a map \(\overline{\mathcal{H}}_{d,g}\to\overline{\mathcal{M}}_g\) between two moduli spaces: the completion of the Hurwitz space \(\overline{\mathcal{H}}_{d,g}\) and the moduli space \(\overline{\mathcal{M}}_g\). Furthermore, instead of \(\overline{\mathcal H}_{d,g}\) itself, we technically need to take a subvariety \(\tilde{H}\) in the Hurwitz space depending on the parity of \(g\). As a result, the restriction \(h:\tilde{H}\to \overline{\mathcal M}_g\) becomes a finite (branched) map. For the given SLF \(f:X\to B\), the pull back \(h^\ast(B)\to \tilde{H}\) gives an SLF \(\tilde{X}\to\tilde{B}=h^\ast(B)\), where \(\tilde{B}\) is a closed surface. Showing smoothness at any general point in some divisors in the Hurwitz space, they conclude that the SLF \(\tilde{f}:\tilde{X}\to\tilde{B}\) can be turned into a cover \(\kappa:\tilde{X}\to P\), where \(P\) is a symplectic ruled surface. This gives a family of degree \(d\) branched cover \(X_s\to {\mathbb P}^1_{\mathbb C}\). In the final section, the authors focus on the fiber genus \(g=4\) case, which is the simplest but non-trivial case in the present work. Every symplectic Lefschetz fibration with the fiber genus \(4\) admits a trigonal cover to a symplectic ruled surface branched in a symplectic submanifold. Here they devote to making an explicit analysis in the case of \(g=4\) with local models of singular fibers and symplecticity of branching divisors.