The arithmeticity of a Kodaira fibration is determined by its universal cover (Q2351858)

A Kodaira fibration over a compact Riemann surface \(C\) is a smooth compact complex surface \(S\) equipped with a surjective holomorphic map \(S \rightarrow C\) that has maximal rank everywhere and isomorphically distinct connected Riemann surfaces as fibers. Every Kodaira fibration is algebraic and of general type, and has hyperbolic base and fibers. The crux of this paper is a straightforward but interesting argument that \(S\) is defined over a number field if and only if \(C\) is defined over a number field. The argument uses a criterion due to Gonzalez-Diez and Harvey for varieties being defined over number fields. The paper's main result then is that, being defined over a number field, arithmeticity is an invariant of the biholomorphism class of the universal cover of \(S\). To obtain this result, the authors observe that work by Bers, Griffiths, and Shabat leads to explicit descriptions of universal covers of Kodaira fibrations (whereas universal covers of complex surfaces in general are not especially well understood).