Algebraic curves in Hilbert modular surfaces that are totally geodesic for the Kobayashi metric have very interesting geometric and arithmetic properties, e.g. they are rigid. There are very few methods known to construct such algebraic geodesics that we call Kobayashi curves.
We give an explicit way of constructing Kobayashi curves using determinants of derivatives of theta functions. This construction also allows to calculate the Euler characteristics of the Teichmueller curves constructed by McMullen using Prym covers.
We prove canonical isomorphisms between Spin Verlinde spaces, i.e, spaces of global sections of a determinant line bundle over the moduli space of semistable Spin-bundles over a smooth projective curve C, and the dual spaces of theta functions over Prym varieties of unramified double covers of C.
For the Jacobian of a curve, the Riemann singularity theorem gives a geometric interpretation of the singularities of the theta divisor in terms of special linear series on the curve. This paper proves an analogous theorem for Prym varieties. Applications of this theorem to cubic threefolds, and Prym varieties of dimension five, are also considered.
Let p:C' -> C be an unramified double covering of irreducible smooth curves and let P be the attached Prym variety. We prove the schematic theta-dual equalities in the Prym variety T(C')=V^2 and T(V^2)=C', where V^2 is the Brill-Noether locus of P associated to p considered by Welters. As an application we prove a Torelli Theorem analogous to the fact that the g-th symmetric product of a curve D of genus g determines the curve.
Let $P \cup P'$ be the two component Prym variety associated to an étale double cover $\tilde{C} \to C$ of a non-hyperelliptic curve of genus $g \geq 6$ and let $|2Ξ_0|$ and $|2Ξ_0'|$ be the linear systems of second order theta divisors on $P$ and $P'$ respectively. The component $P'$ contains canonically the Prym curve $\tilde{C}$. We show that the base locus of the subseries of divisors containing $\tilde{C} \subset P'$ is scheme-theoretically the curve $\tilde{C}$. We also prove canonical isomorphisms between some subseries of $|2Ξ_0|$ and $|2Ξ_0'|$ and some subseries of second order theta …
If the theta-null divisor $Θ_{\rm null}$ is moved to the Prym moduli space through the diagram $\mathcal{S}_{g}^{+}\rightarrow\mathcal{M}_{g}\leftarrow\mathcal{R}_{g}$, it splits into two irreducible components $\mathcal{P}_{\rm\! null}^{+}$ and $\mathcal{P}_{\rm\! null}^{-}$. Using test curve techniques, we compute the class of the closure of each of these components in terms of the generating classes of $\mathrm{Pic}(\overline{\mathcal{R}}_{g})_{\mathbb{Q}}$.
We study the behavior of theta characteristics on an algebraic curve under the specialization map to a tropical curve. We show that each effective theta characteristic on the tropical curve is the specialization of $2^{g-1}$ even theta characteristics and $2^{g-1}$ odd theta characteristics. We then study the relationship between unramified double covers of a tropical curve and its theta characteristics, and use this to define the tropical Prym variety.
Theta functions of level n on the principally polarised Prym varieties of an algebraic curve are dual to sections of the orthogonal theta line bundle on the moduli space of Spin(n)-bundles over the curve. As a by-product of our computations we also note that when n is odd the pfaffian line bundle on moduli space has a basis of sections labelled by the even theta characteristics of the curve.
Van Geemen and van der Geer, Donagi, Beauville and Debarre proposed characterizations of the locus of jacobians which use the linear system of $2Θ$-divisors. We give new evidence for these conjectures in the case of Prym varieties.
For an Abel-Prym curve contained in a Prym variety, we determine the cohomological support loci of its twisted ideal sheaves and the dimension of its theta-dual.
Theta-duality and Prym-Torelli for cyclic covers of hyperelliptic curves
Anatoli Shatsila Doctoral School of Exact；Natural Sciences, Jagiellonian University in Krak\'ow, ul. prof. Stanisława Łojasiewicza 6, 30-348 Kraków, Poland
We study moduli spaces of K3 surfaces endowed with a Nikulin involution and their image in the moduli space R_g of Prym curves of genus g. We observe a striking analogy with Mukai's well-known work on ordinary K3 surfaces. Many of Mukai's results have a very precise Prym-Nikulin analogue, for instance: (1) A general Prym curve from R_g is a section of a Nikulin surface if and only if g\leq 7, g\neq 6. (2) R_7 has the structure of a Mori fibre space over the corresponding moduli space of polarized Nikulin surfaces. (3) In the case of genus next to maximal (g=6), the Prym-Nikulin locus in R_6 is…
We show that the Verlinde formula for moduli spaces of spin bundles on an algebraic curve gives dimensions of direct sums of spaces of theta functions over the finite set of Prym varieties of unramified double covers of the curve. We then construct a natural duality (though we do not show it is nondegenerate) between the latter spaces and the spaces of sections of the theta bundles on the moduli spaces of spin bundles corresponding to the orthogonal representation. Finally, it is remarked that this should be viewed as a special case of a conjectured `strange duality' for spin bundles.
We study the enumerative geometry of the moduli space R_g of Prym varieties of dimension g-1 (also known as the space of admissible double covers). Our main result is that the compactification of R_g is of general type as soon as g>13. We achieve this by computing the class of two types of cycles on R_g: one defined in terms of Koszul cohomology of Prym curves, the other defined in terms of Raynaud theta divisors associated to certain vector bundles on curves. We formulate a Prym-Green conjecture on syzygies of Prym-canonical curves. In the appendix we show that even though R_g has non-canonic…
We prove that Prym varieties of algebraic curves with two smooth fixed points of involution are exactly the indecomposable principally polarized abelian varieties whose theta-functions provide explicit formulae for integrable 2D Schrödinger equation.
With every smooth, projective algebraic curve $\tilde{C}$ with involution $σ:\tilde{C}\longrightarrow \tilde{C}$ without fixed points is associated the Prym data which consists of the Prym variety $P:=(1-σ)J(\tilde{C})$ with principal polarization $Ξ$ such that $2Ξ$ is algebraically equivalent to the restriction on $P$ of the canonical polarization $Θ$ of the Jacobian $J(\tilde{C})$. In contrast to the classical Torelli theorem the Prym data does not always determine uniquely the pair $(\tilde{C},σ)$ up to isomorphism. In this paper we introduce an extension of the Prym data as follows. We con…
For a cubic surface X, by considering the intermediate Jacobian J(Y) of the triple covering Y of the 3-dimensional projective space branching along X, Allcock, Carlson and Toledo constructed a period map per from the family of marked cubic surfaces to the four dimensional complex ball embedded in the Siegel upper half space of degree 5. We give an expression of the inverse of per in terms of theta constants by constructing an isomorphism between J(Y) and a Prym variety of a cyclic 6-ple covering of the projective line branching at seven points.
This is the second part of a paper describing a new concept of separation of variables applied to the classical Clebsch integrable case. The quadratures obtained in Part I (also uploaded in arXiv.org) lead to a new type of the Abel map which contains Abelian integrals on two different algebraic curves. Here we interprete it as from the product of the two curves to the Prym variety of one of them, show that the map is well defined although not a bijection. We analyse its properties and formulate a new extention of the Riemann vanishing theorem, which allows to invert the map in terms of theta-f…
We introduce two algebraic completely integrable analogues of the Mumford systems which we call hyperelliptic Prym systems, because every hyperelliptic Prym variety appears as a fiber of their momentum map. As an application we show that the generic fiber of the momentum map of the periodic Volterra lattice $$\dot a_i=a_i(a_{i-1}-a_{i+1}), \qquad i=1,...,n,\quad a_{n+1}=a_1,$$ is an affine part of a hyperelliptic Prym variety, obtained by removing $n$ translates of the theta divisor, and we conclude that this integrable system is algebraic completely integrable.
We study the $p$-rank stratification of the moduli space of Prym varieties in characteristic $p > 0$. For arbitrary primes $p$ and $\ell$ with $\ell \not = p$ and integers $g \geq 3$ and $0 \leq f \leq g$, the first theorem generalizes a result of Nakajima by proving that the Prym varieties of all the unramified ${\mathbb Z}/\ell$-covers of a generic curve $X$ of genus $g$ and $p$-rank $f$ are ordinary. Furthermore, when $p \geq 5$ and $\ell = 2$, the second theorem implies that there exists a curve of genus $g$ and $p$-rank $f$ having an unramified double cover whose Prym has $p$-rank $f'$ fo…
In this text we prove that if an abelian variety $A$ admits an embedding into the Jacobian of a smooth projective curve $C$, and if we consider $Θ_A$ to be the divisor $Θ_C\cap A$, where $Θ_C$ denotes the theta divisor of $J(C)$, then the embedding of $Θ_A$ into $A$ induces an injective push-forward homomorphism (under certain conditions) at the level of Chow groups. We show that this is the case for every Prym varietiy arising from an unramified double cover of smooth projective curves. As a consequence we prove that there does not exist a universal codimension two cycle on the product of a v…
Let T be a general bidegree (2,2) divisor in the product of two projective planes. Recently A.Verra proved that the existence of two conic bundle structures (c.b.s.) on T implies a new counterexample to the Torelli theorem for Prym varieties. Let J(T) be the jacobian of T. In this paper we prove that any of the two c.b.s. on T admits a parametrisation of the theta divisor of J(T) by the Abel-Jacobi image of a special family of elliptic curves of degree 9 (minimal sections of the given c.b.s.) on T. This result is an analogue of the well-known Riemann theorem for curves. In particular, this imp…
If C is a curve of genus 4 without vanishing theta-nulls then there exists a unique (irreducible) Heisenberg-invariant quartic Q_C in |2Θ| = P^{15} such that Sing Q_C contains the image of SU_C(2), the moduli space of rank 2 vector bundles with trivial determinant. Moreover, in each eigen-P^7 of the Heisenberg action on |2Θ|, Q_C restricts to the classical Coble quartic of the corresponding Prym-Kummer variety. We compare Q_C with the hypersurface G_3 in |2Θ| of divisors containing a translate of C in J(C), and show that in the eigen-P^7s G_3 recovers Beauville--Debarre's quadrisecant planes o…
The following divisors in the space Sym^{12} P^1 of twelve points on P^1 are actually the same: (A) the possible locus of the twelve nodal fibers in a rational elliptic fibration (i.e. a pencil of plane cubic curves); (B) degree 12 binary forms that can be expressed as a cube plus a square; (C) the locus of the twelve tangents to a smooth plane quartic from a general point of the plane; (D) the branch locus of a degree 4 map from a hyperelliptic genus 3 curve to P^1; (E) the branch locus of a degree 3 map from a genus 4 curve to P^1 induced by a theta-characteristic; and several more. The corr…
