Universal covering spaces and fundamental groups in algebraic geometry as schemes
Ravi Vakil, Kirsten Wickelgren
备注：
v2: Important references added. New example by David Harbater: the group scheme structure on the additive group does not lift to its universal cover in positive characteristic. v3: Article identical. arXiv abstract updated. v4: accepted version, J. Theor. Nombres Bordeaux, to appear
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.
Let $f:X\to Y$ be a finite ramified Galois covering of algebraic varieties defined over the complex numbers. In this paper, we prove some structure theorems for such coverings in the case that the non-abelian Galois group of the cover is metabelian (in particular metacyclic). Our results extend the previous ones, obtained by several authors, in the case of abelian and dihedral Galois coverings. In analogy with the abelian (and generalizing the dihedral) case, we find "building data" of metabelian covers from which the cover can be reconstructed. In addition to analyzing several examples, we co…
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 .
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 consider coverings of real algebraic curves to real rational algebraic curves. We show the existence of such coverings having prescribed topological degree on the real locus. From those existence results we prove some results on Brill-Noether Theory for pencils on real curves. For coverings having topological degree 0 we introduce the covering number k and we prove the existence of coverings of degree 4 with prescribed covering number.
Let X be a smooth genus g curve equipped with a simple morphism f: X -> C, where C is either the projective line or more generally any smooth curve whose gonality is computed by finitely many pencils. Here we apply a method developed by Aprodu to prove that if g is big enough then X satisfies both Green and Green-Lazarsfeld conjectures. We also partially address the case in which the gonality of C is computed by infinitely many pencils.
Let U be a universal covering of a connected nonsingular projective variety X with large and residually finite fundamental group. We construct metrics on U and provide another version of the uniformization theorem, namely: if the fundamental group of X is, in addition, nonamenable then U is a bounded Stein domain. The Appendix contains a proof of the Shafarevich conjecture provided the fundamental group is residually finite.
An algebraic variety X is embedded to the order k via a line bundle L if the global sections of L generate all (simultaneous) jets of order k on X or if they separate all zero-dimensional subschemes of length at most k+1. Even though we refer to both situations as "higher order embeddings", the first notion (in which case L is said to be k-jet ample) is stronger than the second one (when L is k-very ample). The purpose of this paper is to study higher order embeddings of cyclic coverings π:Y\to X via line bundles given by pulling back "sufficiently positive" line bundles on X. Given a line bun…
An almost Belyi covering is an algebraic covering of the projective line, such that all ramified points except one simple ramified point lie above a set of 3 points of the projective line. In general, there are 1-dimensional families of these coverings with a fixed ramification pattern. (That is, Hurwitz spaces for these coverings are curves.) In this paper, three almost Belyi coverings of degrees 11, 12, and 20 are explicitly constructed. We demonstrate how these coverings can be used for computation of several algebraic solutions of the sixth Painleve equation.
The signature of closed oriented manifolds is well-known to be multiplicative under finite covers. This fails for Poincaré complexes as examples of C. T. C. Wall show. We establish the multiplicativity of the signature, and more generally, the topological L-class, for closed oriented stratified pseudomanifolds that can be equipped with a middle-perverse Verdier self-dual complex of sheaves, determined by Lagrangian sheaves along strata of odd codimension (so-called L-pseudomanifolds). This class of spaces contains all Witt spaces and thus all pure-dimensional complex algebraic varieties. We ap…
Let $Y$ be a complex algebraic variety, $G \curvearrowright Y$ an action of an algebraic group on $Y$, $U \subseteq Y({\mathbb C})$ a complex submanifold, $Γ< G({\mathbb C})$ a discrete, Zariski dense subgroup of $G({\mathbb C})$ which preserves $U$, and $π:U \to X({\mathbb C})$ an analytic covering map of the complex algebraic variety $X$ expressing $X({\mathbb C})$ as $Γ\backslash U$. We note that the theory of elimination of imaginaries in differentially closed fields produces a generalized Schwarzian derivative $\widetildeχ:Y \to Z$ (where $Z$ is some algebraic variety) expressing the quot…
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…
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.
In this paper, we study group equations with occurrences of automorphisms. We describe equational domains in this class of equations. Moreover, we solve a number of open problem posed in universal algebraic geometry.
We give an effective infinitesimal Torelli theorem for cyclic covers of G/P, where G is a simple algebraic group and P is a maximal parabolic subgroup.
Some notions of algebraic geometry can be defined for arbitrary varieties of algebras. This leads to universal algebraic geometry. The main idea of the presented theory is to consider interactions between algebra, logic and geometry in algebras from a given variety of algebras.
For a class of non-hyperelliptic genus 3 curves C which are 2-fold coverings of elliptic curves E, we give an explicit algebraic description of all birationally non-equivalent genus 2 curves whose Jacobians are degree 2 isogeneous to the Prym varieties associated to such coverings. Our description is based on previous studies of Prym varieties with polarization (1,2) in connection with separation of variables in a series of classical and new algebraic integrable systems linearized on such varieties. We also consider some special cases of the covering C -> E, in particular, when the correspondi…
We use coverings by smooth projective varieties then apply nonabelian Hodge techniques to study the topology of proper Deligne-Mumford stacks as well as more general simplicial varieties.
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.
We present a collection of algebraic equivalences between tautological cycles on the Jacobian $J$ of a curve, i.e., cycles in the subring of the Chow ring of $J$ generated by the classes of certain standard subvarieties of $J$. These equivalences are universal in the sense that they hold for all curves of given genus. We show also that they are compatible with the action of the Fourier transform on tautological cycles and compute this action explicitly.
We prove that the wreath product $C=A wr B$ of a semigroup $A$ with zero and an infinite cyclic semigroup $B$ is $q_ω$-compact (logically Noetherian). Our result partially solves the Plotkin`s problem about wreath products
We revisit a classical paper by Piatetski-Shapiro and Shafarevich on algebraic approach to uniformization and provide a partial solution of the problem, namely, whether the existence of proalgebraic quasi-homogeneous coverings of general type is the characteristic property of algebraic varieties whose universal coverings are bounded symmetric domains.
We construct a moduli space for the connected subgroups of an algebraic group and the corresponding universal family. Morphisms from an algebraic variety to this moduli space correspond to flat families of connected algebraic subgroups parametrised by this variety. This moduli space is obtained by gluing together infinitely many irreducible projective varieties of bounded dimension along closed subvarieties. Regarding families of non-connected subgroups of an algebraic group, we show that, given sich a family, the corresponding family of identity components is an irreducible component of the f…
In this thesis, we study the Berkovich skeleton of an algebraic curve over a discretely valued field $K$. We do this using coverings $C\rightarrow{\mathbb{P}^{1}}$ of the projective line. To study these coverings, we take the Galois closure of the corresponding injection of function fields $K(\mathbb{P}^{1})\rightarrow{K(C)}$, giving a Galois morphism $\overline{C}\rightarrow{\mathbb{P}^{1}}$. A theorem by Liu and Lorenzini tells us how to associate to this morphism a Galois morphism of semistable models $\mathcal{C}\rightarrow{\mathcal{D}}$. That is, we make the branch locus disjoint in the s…
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 …
Let $O$ be a nilpotent orbit of a complex semisimple Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ and let $π: X \to \bar{O}$ be the finite covering associated with the universal covering of $O$. In the previous article we have explicitly constructed a $\mathbf{Q}$-factorial terminalization $\tilde{X}$ of $X$ when $\mathfrak{g}$ is classical. In the present article, we count how many different $\mathbf{Q}$-factorial terminalizations $X$ has. We construct the universal Poisson deformation of $\tilde{X}$ over $H^2(\tilde{X}, \mathbf{C})$ and look at the action of the Weyl group $W(X)$ on $H^2(\tilde{X}, \mathbf{C}…
In the long paper "Family Blowup formula, Admissible Graphs and the Enumeration of Singular Curves (I)" (appearing in JDG), the author solved the enumeration problem of nodal (or general singular) curve counting on algebraic surfaces by using techniques from differential topology/symplectic geometry (including family Seiberg-Witten theory) and some ideas derived from Taubes' "SW=Gr". In the current paper, we offer an algebraic proof of the "universality theorem", showing that the counting of nodal curves for 5$δ$-1 very ample complete linear systems are controled by universal polynomials of th…
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 …
In this paper, we construct a natural probability measure on the space of real branched coverings from a real projective algebraic curve $(X,c_X)$ to the projective line $(\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1,\textrm{conj})$. We prove that the space of degree $d$ real branched coverings having "many" real branched points (for example more than $\sqrt{d}^{1+α}$, for any $α>0$) has exponentially small measure. In particular, maximal real branched coverings, that is real branched coverings such that all the branched points are real, are exponentially rare.
The main goal of this article is to relate asymptotic geometric properties on a tower of coverings of a non-compact Kähler manifold of finite volume with reasonable geometric assumptions to its universal covering. Applicable examples include moduli spaces of hyperbolic punctured Riemann surfaces and Hermitian locally symmetric spaces of finite volume.
In the note we construct a family of étale coverings of the affine line. More specifically, let $F$ be a finite field of characteristic $p$ and suppose that the cardinality of $F$ is at least 4. Let $A = F[T]$ be the polynomial ring in one variable $T$, $K=F(T)$. Let $K_\infty$ be the completion of $K$ along the valuation given by $1/T$, and let $C$ be the completion of the algebraic closure of $K_\infty$. We prove in this note that there is a continous surjection $$π_1^{alg}(\A^1_C) \to \lim_{\leftarrow \atop I} SL_2( A/I )/{\pm 1},$$ where $π_1^{alg}(\A^1_C)$ is the algebraic fundamental gro…
This paper is the first in a series of three, the aim of which is to lay the foundations of algebraic geometry over the free metabelian Lie algebra $F$. In the current paper we introduce the notion of a metabelian Lie $U$-algebra and establish connections between metabelian Lie $U$-algebras and special matrix Lie algebras. We define the $Δ$-localisation of a metabelian Lie $U$-algebra $A$ and the direct module extension of the Fitting's radical of $A$ and show that these algebras lie in the universal closure of $A$.
Let $Y$ be an algebraic variety, $\mathcal{F}$ a locally free sheaf of $\mathcal{O}_Y$-modules, and $\mathcal{R}(\mathcal{F})$ the $\mathcal{O}_Y$-algebra $\operatorname{Sym}^\bullet \mathcal{F}$. In this paper we study local properties of sheaves of $\mathcal{O}_{\mathcal{R}(\mathcal{F})}$-ideals $\mathcal{I}$ such that $\mathcal{R}(\mathcal{F}))/\mathcal{I}$ is an algebraic cover of $Y$. Following the work of Miranda for triple covers, for $\mathcal{Q}$ a direct summand of $\mathcal{R}(\mathcal{F})$, we say that a morphism $Φ\colon \mathcal{Q}\rightarrow\mathcal{R}(\mathcal{F})/\langle\mathc…
