Irreducible components of Hurwitz spaces of coverings with two special fibers (Q358214)

This paper is a continuation of the work done in [\textit{F. Vetro}, Pac. J. Math. 255, No. 1, 241--255 (2012; Zbl 1259.14031)] and continues to analyze irreducibility of Hurwitz spaces that parameterize branched coverings \(X \to X' \to Y\), where \(\pi: X \to X'\) is of degree \(2\), \(f: X' \to Y\) is of degree \(d\) with monodromy group the full symmetric group \(S_d\), and \(Y\) is a smooth curve of arbitrary genus. The map \(\pi\) is assumed to be simply branched in \(n_1\) points, and the map \(f\) is taken to be simply branched in \(n_2\) points while having arbitrary ramification over two fixed special points \(P_1, P_2 \in Y\). Furthermore, the author assumes that at least one branch point of \(\pi\) lies over one of the two special branch points \(P_i\) of \(f\), no branch point of \(\pi\) lies over a simple branch point of \(f\), and the image of the branch locus of \(\pi\) is not contained in \(\{ P_1,\, P_2 \}\). Denoting by \(r\) and \(s\) the number of preimages of \(P_1\) and \(P_2\), the author shows that the Hurwitz space parameterizing such coverings is irreducible under the hypothesis that \(n_2 - s - r \geq d + 1\). In the previous paper mentioned above, under the same hypothesis irreducibility was shown for Hurwitz spaces of coverings of the same form, but with the requirement that no branch point of \(\pi\) lie over any branch point of \(f\). The proof proceeds in the standard way by associating to each such cover a Hurwitz datum and showing that each such datum can be brought into a given normal form via braid moves. Irreducibility of Hurwitz spaces that parameterize coverings \(f: X' \to Y\) with two special branch points was shown by the author in [\textit{F. Vetro}, Georgian Math. J. 19, No. 2, 375--389 (2012; Zbl 1248.14037)], and the present proof builds upon that result.