On sections of genus two Lefschetz fibrations (Q600671)

There are two famous theorems of Donaldson and Gompf which, put together, show that Lefschetz fibrations over \(S^2\) characterize symplectic 4-manifolds [\textit{S. K. Donaldson}, ``Lefschetz pencils on symplectic manifolds'', J. Differ. Geom. 53, No. 2, 205--236 (1999; Zbl 1040.53094); \textit{R. I. Gompf} and \textit{A. I. Stipsicz}, 4-manifolds and Kirby calculus. Graduate Studies in Mathematics. 20. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (1999; Zbl 0933.57020)]. On the other hand, Lefschetz fibrations of genus \(g\geq 2\) are determined by their global monodromy \(c_{1}c_{2}\cdots c_{s}=1\) in the mapping class group of a regular fiber \(\Sigma_{g}\), modulo some elementary transformations and conjugation. (Here the diffeomorphisms \(c_i\) are right-handed Dehn twists along simple closed curves -- vanishing cycles -- in \(\Sigma_{g}\)). Moreover, a relation \[ c_{1}c_{2}\cdots c_{s}=\delta_1^{k_1}\cdots\delta_n^{k_n} \] in the mapping class group \(\Gamma_{g,\, n}\) of a surface of genus \(g\) with \(n\) boundary components defines a genus \(g\) Lefschetz fibration over \(S^2\) with \(n\) disjoint sections [Gompf and Stipsicz, loc. cit.]. Here \(\delta_{i}\) are boundary curves and the self-intersection of the \(i\)-th section is the integer \(k_i\). In the paper under review such relations in \(\Gamma_{2,n}\) are established, for \(n=1,\dots,8\). They correspond to genus \(2\) Lefschetz fibrations \(\mathbb CP^2\#13\overline{\mathbb CP}^2\to S^2\) with \(n\) disjoint sections. On the other hand, Onaran shows that such a Lefschetz fibration admits at most \(12\) disjoint sections. As a corollary, the author shows that any genus \(2\) holomorphic Lefschetz fibration without separating singular fiber admits a section. The proof is based on a result of \textit{K. Chakiris} [thesis, Columbia University (1978)] which characterizes these fibrations as fiber sums.