Every normal complex surface singularity with $\mathbb Q$-homology sphere link has a universal abelian cover. It has been conjectured by Neumann and Wahl that the universal abelian cover of a rational or minimally elliptic singularity is a complete intersection singularity defined by a system of ``splice diagram equations''. In this paper we introduce a Neumann-Wahl system, which is an analogue of the system of splice diagram equations, and prove the following.
If $(X,o)$ is a rational or minimally elliptic singularity, then its universal abelian cover $(Y,o)$ is an equisingular deformation of an isolated complete intersection singularity $(Y_0,o)$ defined by a Neumann-Wahl system. Furthermore, if $G$ denotes the Galois group of the covering $Y \to X$, then $G$ also acts on $Y_0$ and $X$ is an equisingular deformation of the quotient $Y_0/G$.
Building on previous work of Kollar, Ein, Lazarsfeld, and Hacon, we show that ample divisors of low degree on an abelian variety have mild singularities in case the abelian variety is simple or the degree of the polarization is two.
We show a sufficient condition for Fujiki-Oka resolutions of Gorenstein abelian quotient singularities to be crepant in all dimensions by using Ashikaga's continuous fractions. Moreover, we prove that all three dimensional Gorenstein abelian quotient singularities possess a crepant resolution as a corollary. This alternative proof of existence needs only simple computations comparing with the results ever known.
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 by results of Kollár, Ein, Lazarsfeld, Hacon and Debarre that divisors representing principal and other low degree polarizations on abelian varieties have mild singularities. In this note we extend such results to polarizations of degree $<g$ on simple $g$-dimensional abelian varieties, settling a conjecture of Debarre and Hacon.
In this paper we give a lower bound for the codimension of the Andreotti-Mayer loci in the moduli space of principally polarized complex abelian varieties. We also present a conjecture on this codimension.
In this paper we study the singularities of the invariant metric of the Poincaré bundle over a family of abelian varieties and their duals over a base of arbitrary dimension. As an application of this study we prove the effectiveness of the height jump divisors for families of pointed abelian varieties. The effectiveness of the height jump divisor was conjectured by Hain in the more general case of variations of polarized Hodge structures of weight $-1$.
In 2002, Alexeev provided a modular interpretation for the toroidal compactification of $A_g$ for the 2nd Voronoi fan. In this paper we show that pairs $(X,Θ)$ in the boundary of this moduli space are semi-log canonical, the analog of log canonical in the non-normal setting. This extends the result of Koll${á}$r stating that principally polarized abelian pairs $(X,Θ)$ are log canonical.
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.
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.
In this paper, we investigate the multiplicities and the log canonical thresholds of abelian quotient complete intersection singularities in term of the special datum. Moreover we give bounds of the multiplicity of abelian quotient complete intersection singularities.
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.
We show that the Mordell Weil rank of an isotrivial abelian variety with a cyclic holonomy depends only on the fundamental group of the complement to the discriminant provided the discriminant has singularities in the introduced here CM class. This class of singularities includes all unibranched plane curves singularities. As a corollary we give a family of simple Jacobians over field of rational functions in two variable for which the Mordell Weil rank is arbitrary large.
In this paper we study the intersection theory on surfaces with abelian quotient singularities and we derive properties of quotients of weighted projective planes. We also use this theory to study weighted blow-ups in order to construct embedded $\mathbf{Q}$-resolutions of plane curve singularities and abstract $\mathbf{Q}$-resolutions of surfaces.
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 local invariants of a meromorphic Abelian differential on a Riemann surface of genus $g$ are the orders of zeros and poles, and the residues at the poles. The main result of this paper is that with few exceptions, every pattern of orders and residues can be obtain by an Abelian differential. These exceptions are two families in genus zero when the orders of the poles are either all simple or all nonsimple. Moreover, we even show that the pattern can be realized in each connected component of strata. Finally we give consequences of these results in algebraic and flat geometry. The main ingr…
For Gorenstein quotient spaces $C^d/G$, a direct generalization of the classical McKay correspondence in dimensions $d\geq 4$ would primarily demand the existence of projective, crepant desingularizations. Since this turned out to be not always possible, Reid asked about special classes of such quotient spaces which would satisfy the above property. We prove that the underlying spaces of all Gorenstein abelian quotient singularities, which are embeddable as complete intersections of hypersurfaces in an affine space, have torus-equivariant projective crepant resolutions in all dimensions. We us…
Consider the moduli space of pairs (C,w) where C is a smooth compact complex curve of a given genus and w is a holomorphic 1-form on C with a given list of multiplicities of zeroes. We describe connected components of this space. This classification is important in the study of dynamics of interval exchange transformations and billiards in rational polygons, and in the study of geometry of translation surfaces.
For which finite subgroups G of SL(r,C), r \geq 4, are there crepant desingularizations of the quotient space C^r/G? A complete answer to this question (also known as "Existence Problem" for such desingularizations) would classify all those groups for which the high-dimensional versions of McKay correspondence are valid. In the paper we consider this question in the case of abelian finite subgroups of SL(r,C) by using techniques from toric and discrete geometry. We give two necessary existence conditions, involving the Hilbert basis elements of the cone supporting the junior simplex, and an Up…
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…
In a recent paper Chiodo and Farkas described the singular locus and the locus of non-canonical singularities of the moduli space of level curves. In this work we generalize their results to the moduli space $\overline{\mathcal R}_{g,G}$ of curves with a $G$-cover for any finite group $G$. We show that non-canonical singularities are of two types: $T$-curves, that is singularities lifted from the moduli space $\overline{\mathcal M}_g$ of stable curves, and $J$-curves, that is new singularities entirely characterized by the dual graph of the cover. Finally, we prove that in the case $G=S_3$, th…
We show that Albanese varieties of abelian covers of projective plane are isogenous to product of isogeny components of abelian varieties associated with singularities of the ramification locus. In particular Albanese varieties of abelian covers of projective plane ramified over arrangements of lines and uniformized by unit ball are isogenous to a product of Jacobians of Fermat curves. Periodicity of the sequence of (semi-abelian) Albanese varieties of unramified cyclic covers of complements to a plane singular curve is shown.
An abelian cover is a finite morphism $X\to Y$ of varieties which is the quotient map for a generically faithful action of a finite abelian group $G$. Abelian covers with $Y$ smooth and $X$ normal were studied in \cite{Pardini_AbelianCovers}. Here we study the non-normal case, assuming that $X$ and $Y$ are $S_2$ varieties that have at worst normal crossings outside a subset of codimension $\ge 2$. Special attention is paid to the case of $\Z_2^r$-covers of surfaces, which is used in arxiv:0901.4431 to construct explicitly compactifications of some components of the moduli space of surfaces of …
In this paper, we classified the surfaces whose canonical maps are abelian covers over $\mathbb{P}^2$. Moveover, we construct a new Campedelli surface with fundamental group $\mathbb{Z}_2^{\oplus 3}$ and give defining equations for Perssson's surface and Tan's surfaces with odd canonical degrees explicitly.
In earlier joint work with our collaborators Akhtar, Coates, Corti, Heuberger, Kasprzyk, Prince and Tveiten, we gave a conjectural classification of a broad class of orbifold del Pezzo surfaces, using Mirror Symmetry. We proposed that del Pezzo surfaces $X$ with isolated cyclic quotient singularities such that $X$ admits a $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein toric degeneration correspond under Mirror Symmetry to maximally mutable Laurent polynomials $f$ in two variables, and that the quantum period of such a surface $X$, which is a generating function for Gromov-Witten invariants of $X$, coincides with th…
We study the locus of abelian Galois covers of $\mathbb{P}^{1}$ in $A_{g}$ and the problem of occurrence of Shimura (special) subvarieties generated by these covers in the Torelli locus $T_{g}$ inside $A_{g}$. We first investigate the existence of Shimura subvarieties in the mentioned locus by some computational methods based on Moonen-Oort works and then exclude many cases using both characteristic $p$ methods and monodromy computations.
This paper deals with singularities of genus 2 curves on a general (d_1,d_2)-polarized abelian surface (S,L). In analogy with Chen's results concerning rational curves on K3 surfaces [Ch1,Ch2], it is natural to ask whether all such curves are nodal. We prove that this holds true if and only if d_2 is not divisible by 4. In the cases where d_2 is a multiple of 4, we exhibit genus 2 curves in |L| that have a triple, 4-tuple or 6-tuple point. We show that these are the only possible types of unnodal singularities of a genus 2 curve in |L|. Furthermore, with no assumption on d_1 and d_2, we prove …
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…
Given a quasi-projective variety X with only Kawamata log terminal singularities, we study the obstructions to extending finite étale covers from the smooth locus $X_{\mathrm{reg}}$ of $X$ to $X$ itself. A simplified version of our main results states that there exists a Galois cover $Y \rightarrow X$, ramified only over the singularities of $X$, such that the étale fundamental groups of $Y$ and of $Y_{\mathrm{reg}}$ agree. In particular, every étale cover of $Y_{\mathrm{reg}}$ extends to an étale cover of $Y$. As first major application, we show that every flat holomorphic bundle defined on $…
We investigate field theories on the worldvolume of a D3-brane transverse to partial resolutions of a $\Z_3\times\Z_3$ Calabi-Yau threefold quotient singularity. We deduce the field content and lagrangian of such theories and present a systematic method for mapping the moment map levels characterizing the partial resolutions of the singularity to the Fayet-Iliopoulos parameters of the D-brane worldvolume theory. As opposed to the simpler cases studied before, we find a complex web of partial resolutions and associated field-theoretic Fayet-Iliopoulos deformations. The analysis is performed by …
We prove that certain degenerate abelian varieties, the compactified Jacobian of a nodal curve and a stable quasiabelian variety, satisfy autoduality. We establish this result by proving a comparison theorem that relates the associated family of Picard schemes to the Néron model, a result of independent interest. In our proof, a key fact is that the total space of a suitable family of compactified Jacobians has rational singularities.
We classify all the surfaces of general type whose canonical map is composed with a pencil if they are the quotient of the diagonal action by an Abelian group acting over the product of two curves. As far as we know all the previous examples with isotrivial canonical map are very particular cases of our construction; moreover we find an unexpected action by a group of order 16. This construction can be easily generalizable to all dimensions.
We examine some recent work of Phillip Griffith on étale covers and fibered products from the point of view of tight closure theory. While it is known that cyclic covers of Gorenstein rings with rational singularities are Cohen-Macaulay, we show this is not true in general in the absence of the Gorenstein hypothesis. Specifically, we show that the canonical cover of a $\mathbb Q$-Gorenstein ring with rational singularities need not be Cohen-Macaulay.
In this paper, using a generalization of the notion of Prym variety for covers of quasi-projective varieties, we prove a structure theorem for the Mordell-Weil group of the abelian varieties over function fields that are twists of Abelian varieties by Galois covers of irreducible quasi-projective varieties. In particular, the resutls we obtain contribute in the construction of Jacobians (of covers of the projective line) of high rank.
(1,d)-polarized abelian surfaces in P^(d-1) with two plane cubic curve fibrations lie in two elliptic P^2-scrolls. The union of these scrolls form a reducible Calabi-Yau 3-fold. In this paper we show that this occurs when d<10 and analyse the family of such surfaces and 3-folds in detail when d=6. In particular, the reducible Calabi-Yau 3-folds deform in that case to irreducible ones with non-normal singularities.
We prove that under some conditions on the monodromy, families of abelian covers of the projective line do not give rise to (higher dimensional) Shimura subvarieties in $A_g$. This is achieved by a reduction to $p$ argument. We also use another method based on monodromy computations to show that two dimensional subvarieties in the above locus are not special. In particular it is shown that such families have usually large monodromy groups. Together with our earlier results, the above mentioned results contribute to classifying the special families in the moduli space of abelian varieties and p…
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…
Abelian covers of $\mathbb{CP}^{1}$, with fixed Galois group $A$, are classified, as a first step, by a discrete set of parameters. Any such cover $X$, of genus $g\geq1$ say, carries a finite set of $A$-invariant divisors of degree $g-1$ on $X$ that produce non-zero theta constants on $X$. We show how to define a quotient involving a power of the theta constant on $X$ that is associated with such a divisor $Δ$, some polynomial in the branching values, and a fixed determinant on $X$ that does not depend on $Δ$, such that the quotient is constant on the moduli space of $A$-covers with the given …
We study the behaviour of the topological fundamental group under totally ramified abelian covers (a special case of abelian Galois covers) of complex projective varieties of dimension at least 2.
Given a flat, finite group scheme G finitely presented over a base scheme we introduce the notion of ramified Galois cover of group G (or simply G-cover), which generalizes the notion of G-torsor. We study the stack of G-covers, denoted with G-Cov, mainly in the abelian case, precisely when G is a finite diagonalizable group scheme over Z. In this case we prove that G-Cov is connected, but it is irreducible or smooth only in few finitely many cases. On the other hand, it contains a 'special' irreducible component Z_G, which is the closure of BG and this reflects the deep connection we establis…
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…
We study normal finite abelian covers of smooth varieties. In particular we establish combinatorial conditions so that a normal finite abelian cover of a smooth variety is Gorenstein or locally complete intersection.
In this article, we study $G$-covers of klt varieties, where $G$ is a reductive group. First, we exhibit an example of a klt singularity admitting a $\mathbb{P}{\rm GL}_n(\mathbb{K})$-cover that is not of klt type. Then, we restrict ourselves to $G$-quasi-torsors, a special class of $G$-covers that behave like $G$-torsors outside closed subsets of codimension two. Given a $G$-quasi-torsor $X\rightarrow Y$, where $G$ is a finite extension of a torus $\mathbb{T}$, we show that $X$ is of klt type if and only if $Y$ is of klt type. We prove a structural theorem for $\mathbb{T}$-quasi-torsors over …
We show that infinitesimal Torelli for $n$-forms holds for abelian covers of algebraic varieties of dimension $n\ge 2$, under some explicit ampleness assumptions on the building data of the cover. Moreover, we prove a variational Torelli result for some families of abelian covers.
The boundary chiral ring of a 2d gauged linear sigma model on a Kähler manifold $X$ classifies the topological D-brane sectors and the massless open strings between them. While it is determined at small volume by simple group theory, its continuation to generic volume provides highly non-trivial information about the $D$-branes on $X$, related to the derived category $D^\flat(X)$. We use this correspondence to elaborate on an extended notion of McKay correspondence that captures more general than orbifold singularities. As an illustration, we work out this new notion of McKay correspondence fo…
The purpose of this paper is to show how the generic vanishing theorems of M. Green and the second author can be used to settle several questions and conjectures concerning the geometry of irregular complex projective varieties. First, we prove a conjecture of Arbarello and DeConcini characterizing principally polarized abelian varieties whose theta divisors are singular in codimension one. Secondly, we study the holomorphic Euler characteristics of varieties of general type having maximal Albanese dimension: we verify a conjecture of Kollar for subvarieties of abelian varieties, but show that…
1) Assuming log Minimal Model Conjecture, we give a construction of a complete moduli space of stable log pairs of arbitrary dimension generalizing directly the space M_{g,n} of pointed stable curves. Each stable pair has semi log canonical singularities. 2) We prove that a stable quasiabelian pair, defined by author and I.Nakamura as the limit of abelian varieties with theta divisors, has semi log canonical singularities.
In this short note we prove two theorems, the first one is a sharpening of a result of Lange and Sernesi: the discriminant curve W of a general Abelian surface $A$ endowed with an irreducible polarization $D$ of type $(1,3)$ is an irreducible curve of degree $18$ whose singularities are exactly $36$ nodes and $72$ cusps. Moreover, we analyze the degeneration of the discriminant curve $W$ and its singularities as $A$ tends to the product of two equal elliptic curves. The second theorem, using the first one in order to prove a transversality assertion, shows that the general element of a family …
