Faithful actions of the absolute Galois group on connected components of moduli spaces

DOI10.1007/S00222-014-0531-2MaRDI QIDQ2017454zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Fabrizio Catanese, Fritz Grunewald, Ingrid Bauer

Publication date 23 March 2015

Published in Inventiones Mathematicae (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1303.2248

Beauville surfaces Belyi curves Galois actions moduli spaces quasiplatonic curves triangle curves

Coverings of curves, fundamental group (14H30) Dessins d'enfants theory (14H57) Families, moduli, classification: algebraic theory (14J10) Surfaces of general type (14J29)

Abstract: We give a canonical procedure associating to an algebraic number a first a hyperelliptic curve C_a, and then a triangle curve (D_a, G_a) obtained through the normal closure of an associated Belyi function. In this way we show that the absolute Galois group Gal(�ar{Q} /Q) acts faithfully on the set of isomorphism classes of marked triangle curves, and on the set of connected components of marked moduli spaces of surfaces isogenous to a higher product (these are the free quotients of a product C_1 x C_2 of curves of respective genera g_1, g_2 >= 2 by the action of a finite group G). We show then, using again the surfaces isogenous to a product, first that it acts faithfully on the set of connected components of moduli spaces of surfaces of general type (amending an incorrect proof in a previous ArXiv version of the paper); and then, as a consequence, we obtain that for every element sigma in Gal(�ar{Q} /Q), not in the conjugacy class of complex conjugation, there exists a surface of general type X such that X and the Galois conjugate surface X^{sigma} have nonisomorphic fundamental groups. Using polynomials with only two critical values, we can moreover exhibit infinitely many explicit examples of such a situation.

Review text

The paper culminates finally in a theorem indicated by the title: the absolute Galois group acts faithfully on the set of components of moduli spaces of complex surfaces of general type. On the way to that result, many other facts are proved which are interesting in their own right. It begins with the construction of a family of very special hyperelliptic curves \(C_a\) of genus \(\geq 3\) depending on a single complex parameter \(a\) and defined over \(\mathbb{Q}(a)\) with some remarkable properties. Two such curves \(C_a, C_b\) are isomorphic if and only if \(a=b\) -- at least if \(a\) and \(b\) are irrational; moreover, for any Galois conjugation \(\sigma\) acting in an obvious way on the family of curves with algebraic \(a\), we have \(\sigma(C_a) = C_{\sigma (a)}\). If \(a\) is an algebraic number, \(C_a\) is a `Belyi curve', i.e. admits a Belyi function. However, \(C_a\) is not `quasiplatonic' (i.e. no Belyi function defines a normal covering \(\mathbb{C} \to \mathbb{P}^1\); the authors use instead the term `triangle curve' which is less common in dessin theory), but one can pass to a finite normal and quasiplatonic cover \(D_a\) of \(C_a\) with a similar property under Galois actions. The genus of \(D_a\) depends on the genus of \(C_a\) and on the arithmetic height of \(a\), it may be very high. The normalization of the Belyi function on \(C_a\) gives a Belyi function on \(D_a\) with covering group \(G_a\), and on the family of `marked triangle curves' \((D_a,G_a)\) one has a faithful action of the absolute Galois group. In analogy to the construction of Beauville surfaces, the authors consider now surfaces \((D_a \times D')/G_a\) isogenous to products and define their moduli spaces. For the action of the absolute Galois group on families of these surfaces and of these moduli spaces they prove a couple of beautiful properties, in particular the above mentioned result. The paper closes with nice explicit examples based on Beauville surfaces whose factor curves have genera 241 and 505 and automorphism group \(G \cong A_7\) with the remarkable property that Galois conjugation does not preserve the topology. For the questions treated in this article, the reader should consult also a couple of other papers not quoted among the references. Concerning the Galois action on families of hyperelliptic Belyi curves see \textit{E. Girondo} and \textit{G. González-Diez} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 39, No. 5, 721--723 (2007; Zbl 1142.14020)]. The conjectures of the article are proven by G. González--Diez and A. Jaikin--Zapirain, ``The absolute Galois group acts faithfully on regular dessins and on Beauville surfaces (to appear in Proc. London Math. Soc.), for a slightly different access see also the PhD thesis by \textit{R. Kucharczyk} [Bonn (2014), see ``Jarden's property and Hurwitz curves, \url{arXiv:1401.6471}, and ``On copies of the absolute Galois group in Out \(\hat{F_2}\), \url{arXiv:1210.2349}]. The topological misbehaviour of Galois actions on Beauville surfaces is described in [\textit{G. González-Diez} and \textit{D. Torres-Teigell}, Adv. Math. 229, No. 6, 3096--3122 (2012; Zbl 1263.14038)] and in [\textit{G. González-Diez}, \textit{G. A. Jones} and \textit{D. Torres-Teigell}, ``Arbitrarily large Galois orbits of non--homeomorphic surfaces, \url{arXiv: 1110.4930}].

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