We show that the universal cover of a compact complex surface $X$ is the bidisk $\HH \times \HH$, or $X$ is biholomorphic to $\PP^1 \times \PP^1$, if and only if $K_X^2 > 0$ and there exists an invertible sheaf $η$ such that $η^2\cong \hol_X$ and $H^0(X, S^2Ω^1_X (-K_X) \otimes η) \neq 0$. The two cases are distinguished by the second plurigenus, $P_2(X)\geq 2$ in the former case, $P_2(X)= 0$ in the latter. We also discuss related questions.
We construct two complex-conjugated rigid surfaces with $p_g=q=2$ and $K^2=8$ whose universal cover is not biholomorphic to the bidisk. We show that these are the unique surfaces with these invariants and Albanese map of degree $2$, apart the family of product-quotient surfaces constructed by Penegini. This completes the classification of surfaces with $p_g=q=2, K^2=8$ and Albanese map of degree $2$.
In this short note, we study compact Kähler surfaces whose universal cover can be realized as a quasi-projective (or quasi-Kähler) surface. In particular, we show that such a surface is a quotient of a torus if the universal cover is affine.
For each $n\geq 3$ we give examples of infinitesimally rigid projective manifolds of general type of dimension $n$ with non-contractible universal cover. We provide examples with projective and examples with non-projective universal cover.
Catanese and Franciosi defined a semispecial tensor as a (non zero) section of the n-th symmetric power of the cotangent bundle twisted by the anticanonical divisor and by a 2-torsion line bundle. A slope zero tensor is instead a section of the nm-th symmetric power of the cotangent bundle twisted by m times the anticanonical divisor. With these definitions we have: Theorem 1. The universal cover of X is the polydisk iff 1) holds. 1) X has ample canonical bundle and admits a semispecial tensor such that at some point p the corresponding hypersurface in the projectivized tangent space is reduce…
We investigate a necessary condition for a compact complex manifold X of dimension n in order that its universal cover be the Cartesian product $C^n$ of a curve $C = \PP^1 or \HH$: the existence of a semispecial tensor $ω$. A semispecial tensor is a non zero section $ 0 \neq ω\in H^0(X, S^nΩ^1_X (-K_X) \otimes η) $), where $η$ is an invertible sheaf of 2-torsion (i.e., $η^2\cong \hol_X$). We show that this condition works out nicely, as a sufficient condition, when coupled with some other simple hypothesis, in the case of dimension $n= 2$ or $ n= 3$; but it is not sufficient alone, even in dim…
This article is concerned with the convexity properties of universal covers of projective varieties. We study the relation between the convexity properties of the universal cover of X and the properties of the pullback map sending vector bundles on X to vector bundles on its universal cover. Our approach motivates a weakened version of the Shafarevich conjecture. We prove this conjecture for projective varieties X whose pullback map identifies a nontrivial extension of a negative vector bundle $V$ by the trivial line bundle with the trivial extension. We prove the following pivotal result: if …
The quotient-cusp singularities are isolated complex surface singularities that are double-covered by cusp singularities. We show that the universal abelian cover of such a singularity, branched only at the singular point, is a complete intersection cusp singularity of embedding dimension 4. This supports a general conjecture that we make about the universal abelian cover of a $\Q$-Gorenstein singularity.
We prove that the universal cover of a normal, projective variety X is quasi-projective if and only if a finite, étale cover of X is a fiber bundle over an Abelian variety with simply connected fiber.
A consequence of the results of Bers and Griffiths on the uniformization of complex algebraic varieties is that the universal cover of a family of Riemann surfaces, with base and fibers of finite hyperbolic type, is a contractible 2-dimensional domain that can be realized as the graph of a holomorphic motion of the unit disk. In this paper we determine which holomorphic motions give rise to these uniformizing domains and characterize which among them correspond to arithmetic families (i.e. families defined over number fields). Then we apply these results to characterize the arithmeticity of co…
We give explicit examples of Gorenstein surface singularities with integral homology sphere link, which are not complete intersections. Their existence was shown by Luengo-Velasco, Melle-Hernandez and Nemethi, thereby providing counterexamples to the Universal abelian covering conjecture of Neumann and Wahl.
It is known that the universal cover of compact Riemann surface is either the projective line, the complex plane or the unit disk. In this article we construct a very explicit family of complex surfaces that gives rise to uncountably many mutually non-biholomorphic universal covers. The slope of these surfaces, which are going to be total spaces of Kodaira fibrations, is also determined
Let $S \to C$ be a Kodaira fibration. Here we show that whether or not the algebraic surface $S$ is defined over a number field depends only on the biholomorphic class of its universal cover.
This article contains a new argument which proves vanishing of the first cohomology for negative vector bundles over a complex projective variety if the rank of the bundle is smaller than the dimension of the base. Similar argument is applied to the construction of holomorphic functions on the universal covering of the complex projective variety .
We study compact Kähler threefolds X with infinite fundamental group whose universal cover can be compactified. Combining techniques from $L^2$ -theory, Campana's geometric orbifolds and the minimal model program we show that this condition imposes strong restrictions on the geometry of X. In particular we prove that if a projective threefold with infinite fundamental group has a quasi-projective universal cover, the latter is then isomorphic to the product of an affine space with a simply connected manifold.
Let X be a compact Kähler manifold such that the universal cover admits a compactification. We conjecture that the fundamental group is almost abelian and reduce it to a classical conjecture of Iitaka.
We give two characterizations of varieties whose universal cover is a bounded symmetric domain without ball factors in terms of the existence of a holomorphic endomorphism \s of the tensor product T\otimes T' of the tangent bundle T with the cotangent bundle T'. To such a curvature type tensor \s one associates the first Mok characteristic cone S, obtained by projecting on T the intersection of ker (\s) with the space of rank 1 tensors. The simpler characterization requires that the projective scheme associated to S be a finite union of projective varieties of given dimensions and codimensions…
We discuss the evidence for and implications of a conjecture that the universal abelian cover of a Q-Gorenstein surface singularity with finite local homology (i.e., the singularity link is a Q-homology sphere) is a complete intersection singularity.
We shall give, in an optimal form, a sufficient numerical condition for the finiteness of the fundamental group of the smooth locus of a normal K3 surface. We shall moreover prove that, if the normal K3 surface is elliptic and the above fundamental group is not finite, then there is a finite covering which is a complex torus.
A three-dimensional orbifold $(Σ, γ_i, n_i)$, where $Σ$ is a rational homology sphere, has a universal abelian orbifold covering, whose covering group is the first orbifold homology. A singular pair $(X,C)$, where $X$ is a normal surface singularity with $\mathbb Q$HS link and $C$ is a Weil divisor, gives rise on its boundary to an orbifold. One studies the preceding orbifold notions in the algebro-geometric setting, in particular defining the universal abelian log cover of a pair. A first key theorem computes the orbifold homology from an appropriate resolution of the pair. In analogy with th…
In previous papers, there were computed the Poincare series of some (multi-index) filtrations on the ring of germs of functions on a rational surface singularity. These Poincare series were written as the integer parts of certain fractional power series, an interpretation of whom was not given. Here we show that, up to a simple change of variables, these fractional power series are specializations of the equivariant Poincare series for filtrations on the ring of germs of functions on the universal abelian cover of the surface singularity. We compute these equivariant Poincare series.
Throughout this paper, we work over ${\mathbb C}$, and $n$ is an integer such that $n\geq 2$. For an Enriques surface $E$, let $E^{[n]}$ be the Hilbert scheme of $n$ points of $E$. By Oguiso and Schröer, $E^{[n]}$ has a Calabi-Yau manifold $X$ as the universal covering space, $π:X\rightarrow E^{[n]}$ of degree $2$. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a relationship of the small deformation of $E^{[n]}$ and that of $X$ $({\rm Theorem}\ 1.1)$, the natural automorphism of $E^{[n]}$ $({\rm Theorem}\,1.2)$, and count the number of isomorphism classes of the Hilbert schemes of $n$ points of …
We investigate the universal Jacobian of degree n line bundles over the Hurwitz stack of double covers of P^1 by a curve of genus g. Our main results are: the construction of a smooth, irreducible, universally closed (but not separated) moduli compactification of this universal Jacobian; a description of the global geometry and moduli properties of these stacks; and a computation of the Picard groups of these stacks in the cases when n-g is even. An important ingredient of our work is the parametrization of line bundles on double covers by binary quadratic forms. This parametrization generaliz…
Consider a projective manifold X and suppose that some wedge power of the cotangent bundle contains a subsheaf whose determinant bundle has maximal Kodaira dimension. Then we prove that X is of general type. More generally we compute the Kodaira dimension if the determinant bundle has sufficiently large Kodaira dimension. This is based on the study of the determinant bundle of a quotient of the cotangent bundle of a non-uniruled manifold: this bundle is always pseudo-effective. We apply this to study the universal cover of a projective manifold. Finally we prove the following: if the canonical…
In topology, the notions of the fundamental group and the universal cover are closely intertwined. By importing usual notions from topology into the algebraic and arithmetic setting, we construct a fundamental group family from a universal cover, both of which are schemes. A geometric fiber of the fundamental group family (as a topological group) is canonically the 'etale fundamental group. The constructions apply to all connected quasicompact quasiseparated schemes. With different methods and hypotheses, this fundamental group family was already constructed by Deligne.
Given a rational homology sphere M, whose splice diagram satisfy the semigroup condition, Neumann and Wahl were able to define a complete intersection surface singularity called splice diagram singularity from the splice diagram of M. They were also able to show that under an additional hypothesis on M called the congruence condition, the link of the splice diagram singularity is the universal abelian cover of M. In this article we generalize the congruence condition to the class of orbifolds called graph orbifold. We show that under a small additional hypothesis, this orbifold congruence cond…
The tropical vertex is an incarnation of mirror symmetry found by Gross, Pandharipande and Siebert. It can be applied to m-Kronecker quivers K(m) (together with a result of Reineke) to compute the Euler characteristics of the moduli spaces of their (framed) representations in terms of Gromov-Witten invariants (as shown by Gross and Pandharipande). In this paper, we study a possible geometric picture behind this correspondence, in particular constructing rational tropical curves from subquivers of the universal covering quiver of K(m). Additional motivation comes from the physical interpretatio…
In their paper Scholze and Weinstein show that a certain diagram of perfectoid spaces is Cartesian. In this paper, we generalize their result. This generalization will be used in a forthcoming paper of ours to compute certain non-trivial $\ell$-adic étale cohomology classes appearing in the the generic fiber of Lubin-Tate and Rapoprt-Zink towers. We also study the behavior of the vector bundle functor on the fundamental curve in $p$-adic Hodge theory, defined by Fargues-Fontaine, under multilinear morphisms.
It has long been known that every quasi-homogeneous normal complex surface singularity with Q-homology sphere link has universal abelian cover a Brieskorn complete intersection singularity. We describe a broad generalization: First, one has a class of complete intersection normal complex surface singularities called "splice type singularities", which generalize Brieskorn complete intersections. Second, these arise as universal abelian covers of a class of normal surface singularities with Q-homology sphere links, called "splice-quotient singularities". According to the Main Theorem, splice-quo…
The article starts with some introductory material about resolution graphs of normal surface singularities (definitions, topological/homological properties, etc). We then discuss the case when the normal surface singularity is an N-fold cyclic covering of a surface germ, branched along a curve given by the germ of an analytic function f. We present non-trivial examples in order to show that from the embedded resolution graph G of f in general it is not possible to recover the resolution graph of the cyclic covering. The main results are the construction of a ``universal covering graph'' from t…
In this paper, we study the (singular) universal cover of an affine hypertoric variety. We show that it is given by another affine hypertoric variety, and taking the universal cover corresponds to taking the simplification of the associated hyperplane arrangement. Also, we describe the fundamental group of the regular locus of an affine hypertoric variety in general. In the latter part, we show that the hamiltonian torus action is block indecomposable if and only if $\mathbb{C}^*$-equivariant symplectic structures on the associated hypertoric variety are unique up to scalar. In particular, we …
We use tools of mathematical logic to analyse the notion of a path on an complex algebraic variety, and are led to formulate a "rigidity" property of fundamental groups specific to algebraic varieties, as well as to define a bona fide topology closely related to etale topology. These appear as criteria for uncountable categoricity, or rather stability and homogeneity, of the formal countable language we propose to describe homotopy classes of paths on a variety, or equivalently, its universal covering space. We also show that, with this topology, the universal covering space of the variety is …
We extend the notion of canonical measures to all (possibly non-compact) metric graphs. This will allow us to introduce a notion of "hyperbolic measures" on universal covers of metric graphs. Kazhdan's theorem for Riemann surfaces describes the limiting behavior of canonical (Arakelov) measures on finite covers in relation to the hyperbolic measure. We will prove a generalized version of this theorem for metric graphs, allowing any infinite Galois cover to replace the universal cover. We will show all such limiting measures satisfy a version of Gauss-Bonnet formula which, using the theory of v…
