On the fundamental group of hyperelliptic fibrations and some applications (Q648059)

The authors consider smooth projective surfaces \(X\) of general type having a fibration \(\pi:X\longrightarrow C\) with hyperelliptic general fibres. In particular, under some mild hypoteses they show that the number of multiple fibres is at most one and the multiplicity of that fibre is at most two. This allows to prove the Shafarevic conjecture for \(X\setminus\widetilde F\) where \(\widetilde F\) is the union of a number of general fibres of \(\pi\) when all the fibres of \(\pi\) are irreducible curves.