On surfaces with a canonical pencil (Q663260)

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On surfaces with a canonical pencil
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    On surfaces with a canonical pencil (English)
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    14 February 2012
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    Let \(S\) be a minimal smooth complex projective surface of general type. One says that the canonical map of \(S\) is \textit{composed with a pencil} if the image of the canonical map (the map given by the linear system \(|K_S|\)) is a curve. \textit{A. Beauville} [Invent. Math. 55, 121--140 (1979; Zbl 0403.14006)] proved that if the canonical map \(\phi_S\) of \(S\) is composed with a pencil and \(\chi({\mathcal O}_S)>20\), then \(\phi_S\) factors through a fibration \(f: S\to {\mathbb{P}}^1\) with general fiber of genus \(2\leq g\leq 5\). In addition, Xiao proved the inequality \(K^2_S\geq 4p_g(S)-6\geq 4\chi({\mathcal O}_S)-10\) for a surface whose canonical map is composed with a pencil with \(g=2\) and \textit{X. Sun} [Acta Math. Sin. 33, No. 6, 769--773 (1990; Zbl 0761.14013); Manuscr. Math. 83, No. 2, 161--169 (1994; Zbl 0827.14026)] refined an inequality of Beauville [loc. cit.] showing, in particular, that if \(g=3\) then \(K^2_S\geq 21/4 p_g -71/6\). Notice that \(21/4 p_g -71/6>4\chi-8\) if \(\chi>>0\). In this paper, the author studies surfaces whose canonical map is composed with a pencil and such that \(K^2_S\leq 4\chi-8\), namely whose numerical invariants are on, or just above, the line \(K^2=4\chi-0\) defined by Xiao's inequality. The main result can be summarized as follows: Theorem. Let \(a\), \(b\) be integers with \(4b-10\leq a \leq 4b -8\); if \(b\gg 0\), then the minimal surfaces \(S\) with \(K^2_S=a\), \(\chi(S)=b\) and canonical map composed with a pencil form one irreducible family. All these surfaces are complete intersections in a toric fourfold and bidouble covers of Segre-Hirzebruch surfaces. The paper contains a very precise description of the surfaces, including explicit equations. It is also proven that each family in the theorem is a proper closed subset of a component of the moduli, namely the general surface in the family can be deformed to a surface whose canonical map is not composed with a pencil.
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    surface of general type
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    canonical map
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    numerical invariants
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    canonical pencil
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    genus 2 fibration
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