The number of genus 2 covers of an elliptic curve (Q2505219)

Let \(E\) be an elliptic curve over an algebraically closed field \(K\). The main aim of this paper is to determine the number \(c_{N,D}=\sharp \text{Cov}_{E,N,D}\) of genus \(2\) covers of \(E\), of fixed discriminant divisor \(D\in\text{Div}(E)\) and fixed degree \(N\) not divisible by \(\text{char}(K)\). The weighted number \(\bar{c}_{N,D}=\sum_{f\in \text{Cov}_{E,N,D}}| \text{Aut}(f)| ^{-1}\) of these covers is determined as well. If \(\text{char}(K)=0\), the closed formulas obtained for these numbers show that the generating function \(F_D(q):=\sum_{N\geq1} \bar{c}_{N,D}\,q^N\) is a quasi-modular form: \(F_D\in \mathbb{Q}[E_2,E_4,E_6]\), where the \(E_k\)'s are the usual Eisenstein series. In the case that the divisor \(D\) is reduced these results had been obtained by \textit{R. Dijkgraaf} [in: The Moduli of Curves. Proc. conf. Texel Island, Netherlands 1994. Prog. Math. 129, 149--163 (1995; Zbl 0913.14007)]. The calculation of the numbers \(c_{N,D}\) and \(\bar{c}_{N,D}\) is reduced to the calculation of the number of covers which do not factor over a non-trivial isogeny of \(E\). The number of these minimal covers is related to the degree of a certain discriminant map \(\delta=\delta_{E,N}\colon H_{E,N}\to\mathbb{P}^1\), where \(H_{E,N}\) is the Hurwitz space which classifies genus \(2\) covers of degree \(N\) of \(E\) which are normalized in the sense of \textit{E. Kani} [Collect. Math. 54, 1--51 (2003; Zbl 1077.14529)]. The computation of \(\deg \delta\) is achieved by relating it to basic numerical invariants of a certain relative genus \(2\) curve \(\mathcal{C}=\mathcal{C}_{E,N}\) over the modular curve \(X=X(N)\) of level \(N\). The precise structure of the degenerate fibers of \(\mathcal{C}/X\) is determined and closed formulas are found for the modular height \(h_{\mathcal{C}/X}\) and the self-intersection number \((\omega_{\mathcal{C}/X}^0)^2\) of the relative dualizing sheaf. This study of \(\mathcal{C}/X\) and some of its numerical invariants has an independent interest and it can be useful for further developments.