UNIVERSAL ABELIAN COVERS OF RATIONAL SURFACE SINGULARITIES (Q4657663)

Let \((X,x)\) be a normal complex surface singularity germ and \(S\) be its link, that is the boundary of a regular neighborhood of \(x \in X\). The author assumes that \(H_1(S,\mathbb Z )\) is a finite group. A morphism \(q:(Y,y)\to (X,x)\) of normal surface singularities is an universal abelian cover of \((X,x)\) if \(q\) induces an unramified Galois covering \(Y \setminus \{y\}\to X \setminus \{x\}\) with covering transformation group \(H_1(S,\mathbb Z )\). The main result of this paper is: Assume that \((X,x)\) is a rational or minimally elliptic surface singularity. Let \(\widetilde X\to T\) be an equisingular deformation of \(X\) with a nonsingular base space. Then there exists a morphism \(\tilde Y\to \widetilde X\) such that \(\widetilde Y_t\to \widetilde X_t\) is the universal abelian cover for each \(t\in T\), and \(\widetilde Y\to T\) is also an equisingular deformation.