Birational characterization of products of curves of genus 2 (Q1774284)

A result of \textit{A. Beauville} [cf. \textit{O. Debarre}, Bull. Soc. Math. Fr. 110, No.~3, 319--342 (1982; Zbl 0543.14026)] says that a surface \(X\) of general type with \(\chi(\omega_{X}) =1\) has irregularity \(q(X)\leq 4\) and, in the case \(q(X)=4\), \(X\) is birationally equivalent to the product of two curves of genus 2. In this paper the authors extend this statement to higher dimensional varieties. Precisely they prove the following theorem: Let \(X\) be a smooth projective variety of maximal Albanese dimension. If \(\chi(\omega_{X}) =1\), then \(q(X)\leq 2 \dim(X)\). Moreover if \(q(X)= 2 \dim(X)\) then \(X\) is birational to a product of curves of genus 2. The proof relies on the generic vanishing theorem of Green and Lazarsfeld and uses induction on the dimension of \(X\). An example shows that in dimension \(\geq 3\) the theorem does not hold under the weaker assumption that \(X\) is of general type.