Special members in the bicanonical pencil of Godeaux surfaces (Q1775261)

A Godeaux surface is a minimal surface \(S\) of general type with \(K_S^2=1\) and \(p_g(S)=0\). It is known that for a Godeaux surface the torsion subgroup \(T(S)\subset H^2(S,{\mathbb Z})\) is cyclic of order at most 5 and that for \(T(S)={\mathbb Z}_3, {\mathbb Z}_4, {\mathbb Z}_5\) the moduli space is irreducible of dimension 8. Here the author considers what he calls a ``general'' Godeaux surface with \(T(S)={\mathbb Z}_3, {\mathbb Z}_4, {\mathbb Z}_5\), namely he assumes that the base locus of the bicanonical pencil \(| 2K_S| \) consists of 4 points. For each of the above values of \(T(S)\) he determines: 1) the number of hyperelliptic curves in the pencil \(| 2K_S| \); 2) the dimension of the subset of the moduli space \(M_4\) of curves of genus 4 that occur as bicanonical curves for a Godeaux surface. It may be worth remarking that in principle there is no reason why the number of hyperelliptic curves in \(| 2K_S| \) should depend only on the torsion of \(S\). The problem of determining the number of hyperelliptic curves in the bicanonical pencil is related to the still open problem of determining the structure of the moduli space of Godeaux surfaces with torsion \(0\) and \({\mathbb Z}_2\) [cf. \textit{F. Catanese} and \textit{R. Pignatelli}, in: Complex analysis and algebraic geometry. A volume in memory of Michael Schneider. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 117--153 (2000; Zbl 1054.14051)].