The moduli space of genus four double covers of elliptic curves is rational

Let C be an irreducible, smooth, projective curve defined over the field of complex numbers. We call C elliptic-hyperelliptic (e.h. for short) if it admits a degree two morphism \(\pi: C\to E\) onto an elliptic curve. We denote by \(M_ g^{eh}\) the moduli space of e.h. curves of genus g. The aim of this note is to present a proof of the following theorem: \(M_ 4^{eh}\) is rational. We proceed as follows: In section 1 the canonical model of a generic e.h. curve C (of genus \(4\)) is shown to be complete intersection of a unique cubic cone R and a unique quadric. By looking at the tangent space to the canonical space at the vertex of R, in section \(2,\) we associate to C a pair \((Z,\gamma)\), where Z and \(\gamma\) are smooth coplanar curves of degree 3 and 2 respectively, and we are able to show that \(M_ 4^{eh}\) is birational to \(((Z,\gamma))/PGL(3).\) - After fixing a quadratic form defining \(\gamma\) we can prove that \(\{(Z,\gamma)\}/PGL(3)\) is birational to \(H^ 0(P^ 1,{\mathcal O}_{{\mathbb{P}}^ 1}(6))/G_{\ell_ 0}\) where \(G_{\ell_ 0}\) is a \({\mathbb{C}}^*\)-extension of \({\mathbb{Z}}_ 2.\) In section 3 we compute the representation of \(G_{\ell_ 0}\) on \(H^ 0(P^ 1,{\mathcal O}_{{\mathbb{P}}^ 1}(6))\) and we show that its \(G_{\ell_ 0}\)-invariant field is purely transcendental over \({\mathbb{C}}\) completing the proof of the theorem.

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