Moduli of theta-characteristics via Nikulin surfaces (Q453410)

In a series of papers Mukai showed some remarkable results concerning curves on \(K3\) surfaces. For example, a general curve of genus \(g\) lies on a \(K3\) surface if and only if \(g\leq 11\), \(g\neq 10\). In the present paper, the authors prove the exact analogue of many of these for curves on Nikulin surfaces. Recall that a Nikulin surface is a smooth \(K3\) surface \(S\) endowed with a non-trivial double cover \(f:\widetilde S\to S\) with branch divisor \(N\) consisting of 8 disjoint smooth rational curves. Such a surface \(\widetilde S\) admits curves \(\widetilde C\) such that \(f\) restricts to an étale double cover \(\widetilde C\to C\) with \(C\) of genus \(g\). The analogue of the obove-mentioned result is then the following theorem: A general Prym cover of genus \(g\) lies on a Nikulin surface if and only if \(g\leq 7\), \(g\neq 6\). Another analogue is: The Prym-Nikulin locus is a divisor in \({\mathcal R}_6\) which can be identified with the ramification locus of the Prym map of \({\mathcal R}_6\) into the moduli space of principally polarized Abelian varieties of dimension 5. Another series of results concerns the birational classification of the moduli space \(\overline{{\mathcal S}}^+_g\) of even spin curves of genus \(g\). The first author showed in [Adv. Math. 223, No. 2, 433--443 (2010; Zbl 1183.14020)] that \(\overline{{\mathcal S}}^+_g\) is of general type for \(g\geq 9\). Using the above results the authors show that \(\overline{{\mathcal S}}^+_g\) is uniruled for \(g\leq 7\) and moreover \(\overline{{\mathcal S}}^+_8\) is a variety of Calabi-Yau type, so in particular of Kodaira dimension 0.