On families of complex curves over \(\mathbb{P}^{1}\) with two singular fibers (Q5964051)

The authors study families of complex curves over \(\mathbb{P}^1\). Let us recall that a family of curves of genus \(g\) over \(C\) is a fibration \(f: S \rightarrow C\) whose general fibers \(F\) are smooth curves of genus \(g\), where \(S\) is a complex smooth projective surface. A family of curves is called \textit{semistable} if all of the singular fibers are reduced nodal curves. One of the most fundamental problems is to classify all families \(f: S \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^1\) with a minimal number of singular fibers and for instance it can be shown that a non-trivial family \(f:S \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^1\) of complex curves of genus \(g\geq 1\) admits at last two singular fibers. The aim of the authors is to classify families of curves of genus \(g\geq 2\) with exactly two singular fibers \(F_1 , F_2\). In order to formulate main results let us recall some definitions. For a fiber \(F = f^{-1}(0)\) of genus \(g \geq 1\) the dual fiber \(F^*\) is defined as follows. Let \(\bar{F} = \sum_{i} n_{i}C_{i}\) be the normal-crossing model of \(F\) and let \(M_{F} =\mathrm{LCM}\{n_{i}\}\) and pick a positive integer \(n\) such that \(n\equiv-1 \pmod {M_F}\). Then \(F^*\) is the pullback of \(F\) under the base change \(t = w^n\), so the dual of \(F\) is not unique. However, when the semistable model of \(F\) is smooth, then \(F^*\) is unique. We say that two fibers \(F_{1}, F_{2}\) are dual to each other if \(F_{1}=F_{2}^*\) and \(F_{2} = F_{1}^*\). Let now \(F_1 ,\dots, F_s\) be all singular fibers of \(f:S \rightarrow C\) and denote by \(\ell_{i} = \ell(F_{i})\) be the number of irreducible components of \(F_{i}\). If \(f\) has a section, then the rank of the Mordell-Weil group of \(f\) is denoted by \(r\) and we compute this number by the following formulae \[ r = \rho(S) - 2 - \sum_{i} (\ell(F_{i})-1), \] where \(\rho(S)\) denotes the Picard number of \(S\). When \(f\) has no section, \(r\) is still defined by the above formulae. In general, the number \(r\) is called virtual Mordell-Weil rank of \(f\). The first main result of the paper is the following. {Theorem 1.} Let \(f: S \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^1\) be a relatively minimal fibration of genus \(g \geq 2\) with two singular fibers \(F_1 , F_2\). Then \(F_1 , F_2\) are dual to each other, i.e. \(F_1 = F_{2}^*\) and \(F_2 = F_{1}^*\). {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize} \item[1)] \(S\) is a ruled surface and the geometric genera of the singular fibers are equal to the irregularity \(q(S)\) of \(S\), \(g(F_{1}) =g(F_{2}) = q(S)\). \item [2)] The virtual Mordell-Weil rank of \(f\) is zero. \item [3)] If \(g = 0\), then \(c_{1}^{2}(S) \leq -2\) and if \(g \geq 3\), then \(c_{1}^{2}(S) \leq -4\). \end{itemize}} Moreover, the authors provide a classification result. {Theorem 2.} Let \(f: S \rightarrow \mathbb{P}^1\) be a relatively minimal fibration of genus \(g=2\) with two singular fibers \(F, F^*\). Then \(f\) is isomorphic to one of \(11\) families, which are listed in the paper.