The generic isogeny decomposition of the Prym variety of a cyclic branched covering (Q2071805)

In the article under review, the author considers the case of a cyclic \(n\)-fold branched covering \[ f \colon S' \rightarrow S \] between nonsingular complex projective surfaces. It is assumed that the branch locus \[\Delta \subseteq S\] is a smooth ample divisor. Further, fixing a very ample complete linear system \(|\mathcal{H}|\) on \(S\) assume that the polarized surface \((S,|\mathcal{H}|)\) is not a scroll nor has a rational hyperplane section. Finally, let \(C\) be a general curve in the linear system \(|\mathcal{H}|\). In this setting, the author's main result pertains to the nature of the \(\mu_n\)-equivariant isogeny decomposition of the Prym variety, \(\operatorname{Prym}(C'/C)\), of the induced degree \(n\) covering \[ f \colon C' := f^{-1}(C) \rightarrow C \text{.} \] In more specific terms, the author builds on work of \textit{C. Ciliberto} and \textit{G. van der Geer} [Lect. Notes Math. 1515, 33--40 (1992; Zbl 0787.14017)]. The main result is that if \[[C] \in |\mathcal{H}|\] is very general, then for each \(d | n\), \(d \not = 1\), the corresponding \(\mu_n\)-isogeny factor \(\mathcal{P}_d(C'/C)\), of the Prym variety \[\operatorname{Prym}(C'/C) \sim \prod_{\substack{d | n \\ d \not = 1}} \mathcal{P}_d(C'/C) \text{,}\] is a \(\mu_d\)-simple abelian variety. As one consequence of the result, when \(n = 2\) it follows that \[\operatorname{Prym}(C'/C) \simeq \mathbb{Z} \text{.}\]