Extremal elliptic surfaces and infinitesimal Torelli (Q1885570)

An elliptic surface is a triple \((\pi,X,C)\) with \(X\) a nonsingular projective complex surface, \(C\) a nonsingular projective complex curve, and \(\pi: X \to C\) a morphism such that almost all fibers are irreducible genus-\(1\) curves and \(X\) is relatively minimal. An extremal elliptic surface is an elliptic surface \(X\) such that the rank of the Néron-Severi group equals \(h^{1,1}\) and there are finitely many sections. In this paper, the author gives a complete classification of extremal elliptic surfaces with constant \(j\)-invariant. As an application, he proves that an elliptic surface \(\pi: X \to \mathbb P^1\) without multiple fibers with \(p_{g}(X)>1\) does not satisfy infinitesimal Torelli if and only if \(j(\pi)\) is constant and \(\pi\) is extremal. For elliptic surfaces with nonconstant \(j\)-invariant and without multiple fibers, he obtains conditions for \(\pi: X \to C\) to be extremal. Furthermore the author gives applications to semistable elliptic \(K3\) surfaces.