Lifting results for rational points on Hurwitz moduli spaces (Q940737)

Let \(G\) be a finite group. From author's abstract: ``Hurwitz moduli spaces for \(G\)-covers of the projective line \(\mathbb{P}^1\) have two classical variants whether G-covers are considered modulo the action of \(\text{PGL}_{2}\) on \(\mathbb{P}^1\) or not. A central result of this paper is that, given an integer \(r \geq 3\) for the degree of ramification divisors on \(\mathbb{P}^1\), there exists a bound \(d(r)\geq 1\) depending only on \(r\) such that'' any point \(\mathbf p^{rd}\) of a reduced (i.e., modulo \(\text{PGL}_{2}\)) Hurwitz space can be lifted to a point \textbf{p} on the nonreduced Hurwitz space so that the degree of the residue field extension \([\kappa (\mathbf p):\kappa (\mathbf p ^{rd})] \leq d(r)\). Extension of this result to infinite towers of Hurwitz spaces as well as its interpretation in terms of gerbs are also discussed in spirits of fundamental works [\textit{M. D. Fried}, ``Introduction to modular towers: Generalizing dihedral group-modular curve connections'', Contemp. Math. 186, 111--171 (1995; Zbl 0957.11047)] and [\textit{P. Debes} and \textit{J.-C. Douai}, ``Gerbes and covers'', Commun. Algebra 27, No. 2, 577--594 (1999; Zbl 0917.18008)]. Given a \(G\)-cover \(f:X\to \mathbb{P}^1\) defined over a field \(k\), the author introduces what is called the \textit{base invariant} as a finite subgroup \(E_f\) of \(\text{PGL}_{2}(\bar k)\), whose conjugacy class is an invariant of \(G/\text{PGL}_{2}\)-isomorphism class of \(f\), and defines the lifting cohomological obstruction of \(f\) over \(k\) as a subset of non-abelian cohomology \(I_k(f)\subset H^1(k,\text{PGL}_{2}(\bar k))\). It is shown that these associated objects \(E_f\) and \(I_k(f)\) well control the degrees \([\kappa (\mathbf p): \kappa (\mathbf p ^{rd})]\) for points \(\mathbf p^{rd}\) on each sublocus of the Hurwitz space determined by \(E_f\). Consequently, ``the bound \(d(r)\) can be chosen depending only on the base invariant (no longer on \(r\)) and \(\leq 6\). When \(r = 4\), our method can still be refined to provide effective criteria to lift \(k\)-rational points from reduced to nonreduced Hurwitz spaces. This, in particular, leads to a rigidity criterion, a genus 0 method and, what we call an expansion method to realize finite groups as regular Galois groups over \(\mathbb Q\). Some specific examples are given.''