No label defined (Q4508909)

This very well written paper collects some new results and some other previously published ones by the author and others, and shows the usefulness of the diagram relating the characteristic class \(c(\lambda)\) of a line bundle \(\lambda\) on a compact Riemann surface \(M\), and the dimension \(\gamma(\lambda)\) of the complex vector space \(\Gamma(M,O(\lambda))\) of holomorphic cross-sections of \(\lambda\). This idea appears in [\textit{E. Arbarello}, \textit{M. Cornalba}, \textit{P. A. Griffiths} and \textit{J. Harris}, Geometry of algebraic curves. Vol. I (1985; Zbl 0559.14017)] in discussing the Brill-Noether theory, which in the paper under review is employed, among other things, to provide an alternative proof of Clifford's theorem and to get some generalizations, mainly to trigonal surfaces. The title of the paper refers to the so-called maximal sequence of the surface \(M\) defined as \[ \mu_M(r)= \max\{\gamma(\lambda)-1: c(\lambda)= r;\;\lambda\text{ a line bundle on }M\}. \] The values of this function depend only on the genus \(g\) of \(M\) for \(r\) outside the interesting range \((0,2g-2)\), but \(\mu_M(r)\) provides interesting information about \(M\) for \(0< r< 2g-2\). Since \(\mu_M\) is monotonically increasing, it is determined by its critical values, defined as \[ r_i= \min\{r: \mu_M(r)\geq i\}\text{ for }i\geq 0, \] or, better, by the set of gap values \(s_i\), defined as those positive integers that are not critical values. The first critical value \(r_1\) is nothing else but the gonality of \(M\). The results of the paper follow, essentially, from the following convexity principle stated as Corollary 4: \[ \text{If }r_i- r_{i-\nu}< r_1\text{ for some }0\leq\nu\leq i,\text{ then }r_{i+\nu+1}- r_i< r_1. \] For the entire collection see [Zbl 0941.00009].