On asymptotic bounds for the number of irreducible components of the moduli space of surfaces of general type. II. (Q288655)

In the paper under review, the authors investigate the asymptotic growth of the number of irreducible and connected components of the moduli space of surfaces of general type corresponding to certain families of surfaces isogenous to a higher product. They obtain a significantly higher growth than the one in their previous paper [Rend. Circ. Mat. Palermo (2) 64, No. 3, 483--492 (2015; Zbl 1331.14038)]. Surfaces isogenous to a higher product are surfaces that appear as quotient of a product of curves of genus at least two \((C_1 \times C_2)/G\) by the free action of a finite group \(G\); they are minimal and of general type. There are two possibilities: 1) the unmixed case, in which \(G\) acts diagonally, and 2) the mixed case, in which there are elements of \(G\) exchanging the two factors. In the paper under review the authors restrict to the unmixed case. Each surface to a higher product of unmixed type is determined, via the Riemann Existence Theorem, by the finite group \(G\) together with two disjoint systems of generators, and its deformation class can be obtained in a purely algebraic way. An explicit construction of disjoint pairs of spherical systems of generators for \(G=(\mathbb Z / 2 \mathbb{Z})^k\), allows the authors to prove the following result. Let \(h=h_{k,l}\) be the number of connected components of the moduli space of surfaces of general type which contain regular surfaces isogenous to a product of curves of unmixed type with holomorphic Euler number \(x_{k,l}=2^{l-3}(k^2+k-4)\) given by a \((\mathbb Z / 2 \mathbb{Z})^k\) action with ramification structure of type \((2^{k(k+1)}, 2^{4+ 2^{l-k+1}})\). If \(k,l\) are positve integers with \(l>2k\), then \[ h \geq 2^{\sqrt[2+\nu ]{x_{kz} }} \qquad \text{ for } \quad k\to \infty\,, \] where \(\nu\) is the positive rational number \(\frac{(l-2k)}{k}\). In particular, given any sequence \(\alpha_i\) which is positive, increasing and bounded by \(\frac{1}{2}\) from above, they obtain increasing sequences \(x_i\) and \(y_i=8x_i\) with \[ \iota^0(x_i,y_i)\geq y_i^{y_i^{\alpha_i}}\,, \] where \(\iota^0(x,y)\) denotes the number of irreducible components of the moduli space of canonical models of regular surfaces of general type \(S\) with \(x=\chi(S)\) and \(y=K_S^2\).