Dihedral Galois covers of algebraic varieties and the simple cases (Q2360602)

In this paper the authors study dihedral covers of smooth varieties, in particular they provide a structure theorem (Section 5) for the Galois coverings \(\pi: X\to Y\), with \(Y\) smooth and Galois group the dihedral group \(D_n\) of order \(2n\). Given a smooth variety \(Y\), they describe the algebraic ``building data'' on \(Y\) which are equivalent to the existence of such covers \(\pi:X\to Y\).\newline The underlying idea is to factor \(\pi: X\to Y\) as the composition of a cyclic covering of order \(n\), \(p: X\to Z:=X/H\), (\(H \subset D_n\) is the group of rotations) and a (singular) double covering \(q:Z\to Y\). A technical novelty here consists in describing Weil divisors and the Picard group of divisorial sheaves on a normal double cover \(Z\) (Section 3). They also describe in detail the special case of Picard group of hyperelliptic curves (Section 4). In the second part of the paper (Section 6 and 7) the authors concentrate on two very explicit classes of dihedral covers of algebraic varieties: the \textit{simple} and the \textit{almost simple} dihedral covers. A simple dihedral covering \(X\) is contained in a rank two split vector bundle of the form \(\mathbb L\oplus \mathbb L\) over \(Y\), and is defined by equations \[ \begin{cases} u^n+v^n= 2a \,, & a\in H^0(\mathcal{O}_Y(nL)),\\ uv= F \,, & F\in H^0(\mathcal{O}_Y(2L)). \end{cases} \] The dihedral action is generated by an element \(\sigma\) of order \(n\) such that \(u\mapsto \xi u\,, v \mapsto\xi^{-1}\), where \(\xi\) is a primitive \(n\)-th root of \(1\), and and by an involution \(\tau\) exchanging \(u\) with \(v\). The authors prove that the branch locus is the divisor \(B = \{a^2 - F^n = 0\}\); \(X\) is smooth if \(B\) is smooth outside of \(F = 0\) and the two divisors \(\{a = 0\}\) and \(\{F = 0\}\) intersect transversally.\newline The almost simple dihedral covers are defined on the fibre product of two \(\mathbb P^1\)-bundles: \(X\) is the subset of \(\mathbb P(\underline {\mathbb C} \oplus \mathbb L)\times _Y\mathbb P(\underline {\mathbb C} \oplus \mathbb L)\) defined by the equations: \[ \begin{cases} u_1v_1-u_0v_0F=0\,,& F\in H^0(\mathcal{O}_Y(2L))\,,\\ a_\infty v_1^nu_0^n-2a_0v_0^n u_0^n+a_\infty v_0^n u_1^n=0 \,, & a_0\in H^0(\mathcal{O}_Y(A_0)), a_\infty\in H^0(\mathcal{O}_Y(A_\infty)) \end{cases} \] where, \(v_1, u_1\) are fibre coordinates on the geometric line bundle \(\mathbb L\to Y\), \(v_0, u_0\) are fibre coordinates on the trivial geometric line bundle \(\underline {\mathbb C} =Y\times \mathbb C \to Y\), and \(A_0, A_\infty\) are effective divisors on \(Y\) such that \(A_0\equiv nL+A_\infty\), \(A_\infty=\{a_\infty=0\}\) and \(A_0=\{a_0=0\}\). The dihedral group \(D_n\) acts on \(X\) in the following way: \[ \begin{aligned} \sigma([u_0:u_1],[v_0:v_1]) =([u_0:\xi u_1],[v_0:\xi^{-1}v_1])\,\\ \tau([u_0:u_1],[v_0:v_1])= ([v_0,v_1],[u_0:u_1])\,. \end{aligned} \] The authors prove that the branch locus is the divisor \(B = \{a_\infty(a_0^2-a_\infty^2 F^n )= 0\}\); \(X\) is smooth if the locus \(\{a_0^2-a_\infty^2 F^n = 0\}\) is smooth outside of \(F = 0\), \(A_0\) intersects transversally \(\{F = 0\}\) , \(A_0\cap A_\infty = \emptyset\) and \(A_\infty\) is smooth.