On the signature of a Lefschetz fibration coming from an involution (Q2498027)

The topology of symplectic 4-dimensional manifolds is deeply related to that of smooth Lefschetz fibrations on them [see, for example, \textit{R. Gompf} and \textit{A. Stipsicz}, 4-manifolds and Kirby calculus, Graduate Studies in Mathematics 20, AMS (1999; Zbl 0933.57020)]. Lefschetz fibrations are understood through their monodromy, which in this setting will be a relation in the mapping class group of the fiber surface consisting of a product of right-handed Dehn twists. One useful source of relations is to consider involutions (or more general symmetric maps) on the fiber surface. \textit{Y. Z. Gurtas} [Positive Dehn twist expressions for some new involutions in the mapping class group. I, II, preprint, math.GT/0404310 and math.GT/0404311] found relations by considering a particular involution \(\phi\) on surfaces of arbitrary genus and computing an explicit factorization of \(\phi^2\) in terms of Dehn twists. In this paper, the author explores the topology of the the Lefschetz fibrations \(X_{\phi^2}\) described by these relations. Theorem 1 computes the signatures of \(X_{\phi^2}\) and furthermore identifies them as blow-ups of ruled surfaces. The author also considers more general \(p\)-fold symmetries, by considering maps \(\psi_p\) of order \(p\) on surfaces of arbitrarily high genus. By observing that \(\psi_p\) is a composition of involutions of the sort considered above, he is able to compute the signatures of the associated Lefschetz fibrations \(X_{\psi^p_p}\). Additionally, by using the derived signature formulas, he describes the geography of both families of manifolds.