Zariski \(k\)-plets via dessins d'enfants (Q1026416)

A \textit{Zariski \(k\)-plet} is a collection \(C_1, \ldots, C_k\) of plane curves of degree \(m\), all of which have the same combinatorial data (i.e., types of singularities and intersection information of irreducible components), but which are pairwise not equiangular deformation equivalent (i.e., do not lie in the same component of the global moduli space). Until this paper, very few examples of Zariski \(k\)-plets were known when \(k > 3\), and all these examples satisfied \(k < \frac{m}{2}\). The main contribution of this paper is a construction of \(k\)-plets for large \(k\) relative to \(m\) and all curves irreducible. In particular, \(k\) grows exponentially with \(m\). It is shown that each curve \(C\) in one of these \(k\)-plets satisfies \(\pi_1(\mathbb{P}^2 \backslash C) \cong \mathbb Z/ m\). More specific results involving reducible curves and curves defined over \(\mathbb{R}\) are also given. The idea of the main construction is to think of the curves constituting a Zariski \(k\)-plet as blow-downs of trigonal curves in Hirzebruch surfaces. To such a trigonal curve, one can associate a \(j\)-invariant, which is a morphism from \(\mathbb{P}^1\) to \(\mathbb{P}^1\) with at most three critical values. Each possible \(j\)-invariant corresponds to a \textit{dessin d'enfants}, and it turns out that there is a bijection between appropriate equivalence classes of ``maximal'' trigonal curves in Hirzebruch surfaces and appropriate equivalence classes of dessins d'enfants. Furthermore, one can read off the types of singular fibers of a maximal trigonal curve from its associated dessin d'enfants. One then constructs the Zariski \(k\)-plets by showing that sufficiently many different equivalence classes of dessins d'enfants correspond to maximal trigonal curves, some of whose singular (and nonsingular) fibers can be blown down to get plane curves with identical combinatorial data.