Moduli spaces and braid monodromy types of bidouble covers of the quadric (Q631336)

Motivated by questions on the canonical symplectomorphism class of surfaces of general type, the authors investigate certain surfaces of general type called \(abc\)-surfaces. This surfaces are bidouble covers \(S\rightarrow\mathbb{P}^1\times\mathbb{P}^1\), defined in terms of bihomogeneous polynomials whose degree is encoded in the integers \(a,b,c\geq 3\), and where already studied by \textit{F. Catanese} and \textit{B. Wajnryb} [J. Differ. Geom. 76, No. 2, 177--213 (2007; Zbl 1127.14039)]. The projections \(S\rightarrow\mathbb{P}^1\) endow such surface with a Lefschetz fibration, and the braid monodromy factorization attached to the branch divisor of the bidouble cover is closely related to the braid monodromy factorization coming from the Lefschetz fibration, The main result of the paper is that the braid monodromy factorizations for an \(abc\)-surface \(S\) and an \(a'b'c'\)-surface \(S'\) are not equivalent, except in obvious cases. The equivalence relation in question is the m-equivalence from [\textit{D. Auroux, L. Katzarkov}, Invent. Math. 142, No.3, 631--673 (2000; Zbl 0961.57019)], which the authors call stable equivalence.