No label defined (Q3971968)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0695.00012. The following is a joint review for this paper and its part II, cf. Mem. Fac. Sci., Kochi Univ., Ser. A 11, 45-64 (1990).] A Kunev surface \(X\) is the canonical model of a surface of general type with \(\chi({\mathcal O})=2\) and \(K^ 2=1\) which has an involution \(\sigma\) such that \(X/\sigma\) is a K3 surface with rational double points. In this paper, the author describes completely the degenerations of Kunev surfaces with finite local monodromy in the second cohomology (called type I degenerations). In other words, he makes their period map proper. In order to state this more precisely, recall that the bicanonical map of \(X\) is a bidouble Galois cover over \(\mathbb{P}^ 2\), where the branch locus consists of two cubics \(\sum C_ j\) and a line \(L\) satisfying the conditions: (i) \(\sum C_ j\) has only simple singularities, and (ii) \(C_ 1\cap C_ 2\cap L=\emptyset\). Let \({\mathcal H}^*:=\{\sum C_ j\mid\text{condition (i)\}}\times\{L\mid\text{line on }\mathbb{P}^ 2\}\), and define two functions on \({\mathcal H}^*\) by \(m(\sum C_ j,L):=\sum_ P\min\{I(P,C_ j\cap L)\mid j=1,2\}\), where \(I(P,C_ j\cap L)\) is the intersection multiplicity of \(C_ j\) and \(L\) at \(P\in \mathbb{P}^ 2\), and \(n(\sum C_ j,L):=\) (number of triple points of \(C_ j\) on \(L\), \(j=1,2)\). Then \({\mathcal M}^*:={\mathcal H}^*/SL(3,\mathbb{C})\) is the partial compactification of the coarse moduli space of Kunev surfaces added those points corresponding to type I degenerations, and the two functions \(m\), \(n\) define a stratification of \({\mathcal M}^*\) consisting of five parts: \(\{m=n=0\}=\)\{Kunev surface\}, \(\{m=1\}=\) \{numerical K3 surface with one double fiber\}, \(\{m=2\}=\)\{K3 surface\}, \(\{n=1,m=0\}=\)\{elliptic surface with \(p_ g=q=1\}\), \(\{n=2\}=\) \{product of two elliptic curves\}, where the right-hand side of each equality indicates the main component of a degeneration. As a corollary to this description, the author explains uniformly the appearance of positive dimensional fibers of the period map as follows: There are two series of type I degenerations of Kunev surfaces, which are controlled by the two functions \(m,n\), and the period map restricted to \(\{m=n=0\}\), \(\{m=1\}\cup\{n=1,m=0\}\), \(\{m=2\}\cup\{n=2\}\) has pure relative dimension 2, 1, 0, respectively.