The Brill-Noether curve and Prym-Tyurin varieties (Q2376885)

A principally polarized abelian variety \((P,\Theta)\) of dimension \(g\) is a Prym-Tyurin variety if there exists a smooth projective curve \(X\) such that \(P\) is an abelian subvariety of the Jacobian \(JX\) and the restriction of the principal polarization of \(JX\) to \(P\) is algebraically equivalent to \(e \Theta\) where \(e\) is called the exponent of \(P\) in \(JX\). Note that such an \(X\) always exists, but with the very large exponent \(e=3^{g-1}(g-1)!\) [\textit{C. Birkenhake} and \textit{H. Lange}, Complex abelian varieties. 2nd augmented ed. Berlin: Springer (2004; Zbl 1056.14063)]. It is an open problem to find for a fixed \(g\), the smallest integer \(m\) such that any principally polarized abelian variety of dimension \(g\) is a Prym-Tyurin variety of exponent \(e \leq m\). When \(g=4\) and \(5\), \textit{D. Mumford}'s results [Contribut. to Analysis, Collect. of Papers dedicated to Lipman Bers, 325--350 (1974; Zbl 0299.14018)] show that one can take a Prym variety of a curve of genus \(2g-1\) with \(e=2\). Another example can be found with dimension \(6\) and exponent \(6\) in [\textit{H. Lange} and \textit{A. M. Rojas}, Manuscr. Math. 125, No. 2, 225--240 (2008; Zbl 1142.14029)]. In the present article, the author considers the case of Jacobian of odd genus curves and gives a better exponent than the general one above. Let \(g=2a+1\) for \(a \geq 2\) and \(C\) be a smooth general curve of genus \(g\) satisfying Petri's theorem. The locus \(W=W_{a+2}^1(C)\) parametrizing line bundles \(L\) of degree \(a+2\) over \(C\) with \(h^0(L) \geq 2\) is a smooth curve of genus \[ g(W)= \frac{a}{a+2} \cdot e+1, \quad \text{with } e=\frac{2g!}{a! (a+1)!}. \] Using Welter's Criterion, the author shows that \(JC\) is a Prym-Tyurin variety for \(W\) of exponent \(e\). She then shows that \(JC \subset JW\) can be described as the image of an explicit endomorphism of \(JW\).