Plane curves and their fundamental groups: Generalizations of Uludağ's construction (Q1408558)

The purpose of this paper is the investigation of a method, due to \textit{A. M. Uludaǧ} [Manuscr. Math. 106, 271--277 (2001; Zbl 1073.14518)], for constructing new plane curves whose fundamental groups are central extensions of the fundamental group of the original plane curve by finite cyclic groups. The new curve is obtained from a given plane curve by means of a Cremona transformation. The author gives some generalizations of this method and discusses some properties of groups which are preserved by these methods. An application of the general methods is given for constructing new Zariski pairs.