Slopes of fibered surfaces with a finite cyclic automorphism (Q2396619)

\(f:S\to B\) denotes a fibered surface, i.e., a surjective morphism from a smooth complex projective surface \(S\) to a smooth projective curve \(B\) which has only connected fibers. The genus \(g\) of its general fiber is said to be the genus of the fibered surface. \(f\) is supposed to be relatively minimal, i.e., without \((-1)\)-curves in its fibers and of genus \(g\geq 2\). The relative invariants \(\chi_f\) and \(K^2_f\) arising form \(\chi ({\mathcal O}_S)\) and \(K^2_S\) respectively, define the slope \(\lambda_f :=\frac{K_f^2}{\chi_f} \), where \(f\) is supposed not to be locally trivial (or equivalently \(\chi_f > 0\)). It is known that \(\lambda_f \geq 4 - \frac{4}{g}\) (slope inequality). The author investigates the following case: The fibration \(f:S\to B\) with \(g\geq 2\) is said to be a primitive cyclic covering fibration of type \((g,h,n)\) if there exists a fibration \(\tilde{\varphi} : \tilde{W} \to B\) (not necessarily minimal) of genus \(h\geq 0\) and a finite cyclic covering \( \tilde{\Theta} : \tilde{S} \to \tilde{W}\) of order \(n\) branched along a smoot curve in \(|n\tilde{\delta}|\) for some \(n\geq 2\) and \( \tilde{\delta} \in \text{Pic}(\tilde{W})\) such that \(f\) is the minimal model of \(\tilde{f}:=\tilde{\varphi} \cdot \tilde{\Theta}\). First of all, the paper gives a lower estimate for the slope in terms of \(g\), \(h\) and \(n\). An example is constructed to show this inequality is sharp; thus the best possible lower bound for \(\lambda_f\) was obtained. The author's theorem generalizes a result of Cornalba and Stoppino [6] obtained for \(n=2\). The further study is restricted to ruled surfaces: In case \(h=0\) the previous theorem for a primitive cyclic covering fibration is refined to obtain a ``slope equality'' with a correction term \(\sum_{P\in B} \text{Ind}(F_P)\), where \(\text{Ind}(F_P)\) is defined in terms of the singularity indices (Horikawa index). As a corollary it is shown that the global signature of \(S\) is locally concentrated on a finite number of fiber germs. The final result of the article gives an upper bound for \(\lambda_f\) if \(f\) is a primitive cyclic covering fibration of type \((g,0,n)\) with \(n\geq 4\). In particular this implies that for \(h=0\), \(n\geq 4\) there is no Kodaira fibration obtained in that way.