Dihedral covers and an elementary arithmetic on elliptic surfaces (Q2567320)

Denote by \(D_{2n}\) the dihedral group of order \(2n\) and by \(H_{n}<D_{2n}\) the cyclic subgroup of order \(n\). A dihedral cover of a smooth complex surface \(Y\) is a finite morphism \(\pi\colon X\to Y\) where \(X\) is a normal surface and the map \(\pi\) is Galois with Galois group \(D_{2n}\). Set \(D(X/Y):=X/H_n\). Then \(\pi\) is the composition of the \(H_n\)-cover \(\beta_1(\pi)\colon X\to D(X/Y)\) and of the double cover \(\beta_2(\pi)\colon D(X/Y)\to Y\). The author calls \(\pi\) an elliptic dihedral cover if the surface \(D(X/Y)\) has an elliptic fibration with a section \(O\). The elliptic dihedral cover is said to be of torsion type if the elliptic fibration on \(D(X/Y)\) pulls back to an elliptic fibration on \(X\). In earlier work, the author has investigated a special class of \(D_{2n}\)-elliptic covers of torsion type, using the existence of such covers to obtain information on the fundamental group of the complement of certain plane curves of low degree. Here he starts the study elliptic \(D_{2p}\)-covers not of torsion type, with \(p\neq 2\) a prime, with special attention to the case where \(D(X/Y)\) is rational. In particular, he analyzes the case in which \(Y\) is the complex projective plane and the branch locus of the dihedral cover is a plane quintic.