The irreducible components of the moduli space of dihedral covers of algebraic curves (Q902295)

Let \(g\geq 2\) be an integer, let \(G\) be a finite group and let \(M_g(G)\) be the closed subset of the moduli space of the curves of genus \(g\) consisting of the isomorphism classes of curves admitting a faithful \(G\)-action. The aim of this paper is to understand the irreducible components of \(M_g(G)\). To a curve \(C\) with a \(G\)-action, one can associate a discrete invariant, the \textit{(unmarked) topological type}; for each topological type \(\rho\), one has an irreducible closed subset \(M_{g,\rho}(G)\) of \(M_g(G)\). One can introduce further discrete invariants that are determined by the topological type. In particular, a new such invariant \(\hat{\epsilon}\) is defined here and it is shown that when \(G\) is dihedral group, \(\hat{\epsilon}\) is a fine invariant, namely it distinguishes the unmarked topological types and therefore provides a classification of the subsets \(M_{g,\rho}(G)\) in this case.