On the geometry of certain irreducible non-torus plane sextics (Q1047760)

Recall that a sextic is said to be of torus type if its defining polynomial can be written as \(F_2^3+F_3^2\) where \(F_2\) and \(F_3\) are homogeneous polynomials of degree 2 and 3. An irreducible non-torus plane sextic with simple singularities is said to be special if its fundamental group factors to a dihedral group. The existence of exactly ten configuration of simple singularities realizable by such curves was proved by \textit{A. Degtyarev} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 78, No. 2, 329--351 (2008; Zbl 1158.14026)]; he also observed that six of them can be realized not only by special sextics but also by non-special ones. The first concrete example of one of these non-special curves was given by the authors of the present paper in [J. Topol. 2, No. 3, 423--441 (2009; Zbl 1180.14026)], in fact they show that the non-special sextic in question has an abelian fundamental group. In the present paper they conjecture that for each of these six configuration there always exists a non-special curve whose fundamental group is abelian and they prove that this holds for three amog them. As a consequence new explicit examples are given of Alexander-equivalent Zariski pairs of irreducible sextics.