We give a group-theoretic description of the parity of a pull-back of a theta characteristic under a branched covering. It involves lifting monodromy of the covering to the semidirect product of the symmetric and Clifford groups, known as the Sergeev group. As an application, we enumerate torus coverings with respect to their ramification and parity and, in particular, show that the corresponding all-degree generating functions are quasimodular forms.
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.
In this article we prove that a semialgebraic map is a branched covering if and only if its associated spectral map is a branched covering. In addition, such spectral map has a neat behavior with respect to the branching locus, the ramification set and the ramification index. A crucial fact to prove the preceding result is the characterization of the prime ideals whose fibers under the previous spectral map are singletons.
In continuation of our work in Comm. in Algebra, vol. 28 (2000), we study ramified coverings of projective manifolds, in particular over Fano manifolds and investigate positivity properties of the associated vector bundle. Moreover we study the topology of low degree coverings and the structure of the ramification divisor.
We study nonsingular branched coverings of a homogeneous space X. There is a vector bundle associated with such a covering which was conjectured by O. Debarre to be ample when the Picard number of X is one. We prove this conjecture, which implies Barth-Lefschetz type theorems, for lagrangian grassmannians, and for quadrics up to dimension six. We propose a conjectural extension to homogeneous spaces of Picard number larger than one and prove a weaker version.
We compute the asymptotics of the number of connected branched coverings of a torus as their degree goes to infinity and the ramification type stays fixed. These numbers are equal to the volumes of the moduli spaces of pairs (curve, holomorphic differential) with fixed multiplicities of zeros of the differential and have several applications in ergodic theory.
For any $n>1$, we construct examples branched Galois coverings from $M$ to the nth projective space ${\mathbb P}^n$ where $M$ is one of $({\mathbb P}^1)^n$, ${\mathbb C}^n$ or $(B_1)^n$, and $B_1$ is the 1-ball. In terms of orbifolds, this amounts to giving examples of orbifolds over ${\mathbb P}^n$ uniformized by $M$.We also discuss the related "orbifold braid groups".
Given a covering f: X \to Y of projective manifolds, we consider the vector bundle E on Y given as the dual of f_*(Ø_X) / Ø_Y. This vector bundles often has positivity properties, e.g. E is ample when Y is projective space by a theorem of Lazarsfeld. In general however E will not be ample due to the geometry of Y. We prove various results when E is spanned, nef or generically nef, under some assumptions on the base Y.
Given a closed Riemann surface $Σ$ equipped with a volume form $ω$, we construct a natural probability measure on the space $\mathcal{M}_d(Σ)$ of degree $d$ branched coverings from $Σ$ to the Riemann sphere $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1.$ We prove a large deviations principle for the number of critical points in a given open set $U\subset Σ$: given any sequence $ε_d$ of positive numbers, the probability that the number of critical points of a branched covering deviates from $2d\cdot\textrm{Vol}(U)$ more than $ε_d$ is smaller than $\exp(-C_Uε^3_d d)$, for some positive constant $C_U$. In particular, …
For a closed oriented surface $ Σ$ let $X_{Σ,n}$ be the space of isomorphism classes of orientation preserving $n$-fold branched coverings $ Σ\rightarrow S^2 $ of the two-dimensional sphere. At a previous paper, the authors constructed a compactification $\bar{X}_{Σ,n}$ of the space that coincides with the Diaz-Edidin-Natanzon-Turaev compactification of the Hurwitz space $H(Σ,n)\subset X_{Σ,n}$ consisting of isomorphism classes of branched coverings with all critical values being simple. Using Grothendieck's dessins d'enfants we construct a cell structure of the compactification. The obtained …
Graber, Harris and Starr proved, when n >= 2d, the irreducibility of the Hurwitz space H^0_{d,n}(Y) which parametrizes degree d coverings of a smooth, projective curve Y of positive genus, simply branched in n points, with full monodromy group S_d (math.AG/0205056). We sharpen this result and prove that H^0_{d,n}(Y) is irreducible if n >= max{2,2d-4} and in the case of elliptic Y if n >= max{2,2d-6}. We extend the result to coverings simply branched in all but one point of the discriminant. Fixing the ramification multiplicities over the special point we prove that the corresponding Hurwitz sp…
Let $f\colon S'\longrightarrow S$ be a cyclic branched covering of smooth projective surfaces over $\mathbb{C}$ whose branch locus $Δ\subset S$ is a smooth ample divisor. Pick a very ample complete linear system $|\mathcal{H}|$ on $S$, such that the polarized surface $(S, |\mathcal{H}|)$ is not a scroll nor has rational hyperplane sections. For the general member $[C]\in|\mathcal{H}|$ consider the $μ_{n}$-equivariant isogeny decomposition of the Prym variety $Prym(C'/C)$ of the induced covering $f\colon C'= f^{-1}(C)\longrightarrow C$:\[Prym(C'/C)\sim\prod_{d|n,\ d\neq1}\mathcal{P}_{d}(C'/C).\…
We construct automorphic forms on the 5-dimensional complex ball which give the inverse of the period map for cyclic 4-ple coverings of the complex projective line branching at eight points with branching index (1/4,...,1/4).
Let $ψ$ be the period map for a family of the cyclic triple coverings of the complex projective line branching at six points. The symmetric group $S_6$ acts on this family and on its image under $ψ.$ In this paper, we give an $S_6$-equivariant expression of $ψ^{-1}$ in terms of fifteen theta constants.
Esnault-Viehweg developed the theory of cyclic branched coverings $\tilde X\to X$ of smooth surfaces providing a very explicit formula for the decomposition of $H^1(\tilde X,\mathbb{C})$ in terms of a resolution of the ramification locus. Later, the first author applies this to the particular case of coverings of $\mathbb{P}^2$ reducing the problem to a combination of global and local conditions on projective curves. In this paper we extend the above results in three directions: first, the theory is extended to surfaces with quotient singularities, second the ramification locus can be partiall…
Using a hyperKähler rotation on complex structures of a Calabi-Yau 2-fold and rolling of an isotropic 2-submanifold in a symplectic 6-manifold, we construct, by gluing, a natural family of immersed Lagrangian deformations of a branched covering of a special Lagrangian 3-sphere in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold and study how they deviate from being deformable to a family of special Lagrangian deformations by examining in detail Joyce's criteria on this family. The result suggests a potential image-support rigidity of A-branes that wrap around a special Lagrangian 3-sphere in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold, which res…
In this paper we deal with branched coverings over the complement to finitely many exceptional points on the Riemann sphere having the property that the local monodromy around each of the branching points is of finite order. To such a covering we assign its \textit{signature}, i.e. the set of its exceptional and branching points together with the orders of local monodromy operators around the branching points. What can be said about the monodromy group of a branched covering if its signature is known? It seems at first that the answer is nothing or next to nothing. Indeed, generically it is so…
The Prym variety for a branched double covering of a nonsingular projective curve is defined as a polarized abelian variety. We prove that any double covering of an elliptic curve which has more than $4$ branch points is recovered from its Prym variety.
We introduce a one-parameter deformation of the 2-Toda tau-function of (weighted) Hurwitz numbers, obtained by deforming Schur functions into Jack symmetric functions. We show that its coefficients are polynomials in the deformation parameter $b$ with nonnegative integer coefficients. These coefficients count generalized branched coverings of the sphere by an arbitrary surface, orientable or not, with an appropriate $b$-weighting that "measures" in some sense their non-orientability. Notable special cases include non-orientable dessins d'enfants for which we prove the most general result so fa…
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.
We study the Kähler geometry of the classical Hurwitz space $\mathcal{H}^{n,b}$ of simple branched coverings of the Riemann sphere $\mathbb{P}^1$ by compact hyperbolic Riemann surfaces. A generalized Weil-Petersson metric on the Hurwitz space was recently introduced. Deformations of simple branched coverings fit into the more general framework of Horikawa's deformation theory of holomorphic maps, which we equip with distinguished representatives in the presence of hermitian metrics. In the article we will investigate the curvature of the generalized Weil-Petersson Kähler metric on the Hurwitz …
In the context of orientable circuits and subcomplexes of these as representing certain singular spaces, we consider characteristic class formulas generalizing those classical results as seen for the Riemann-Hurwitz formula for regulating the topology of branched covering maps and that for monoidal transformations which include the standard blowing-up process. Here the results are presented as cap product pairings, which will be elements of a suitable homology theory, rather than characteristic numbers as would be the case when taking Kronecker products once Poincaré duality is defined. We fur…
