C OMPOSITIO M ATHEMATICA
R. V. G URJAR
A. R. S HASTRI
Covering spaces of an elliptic surface
Compositio Mathematica, tome 54, n
o1 (1985), p. 95-104
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95
COVERING SPACES OF AN ELLIPTIC SURFACE
R.V.
Gurjar
and A.R. ShastriCompositio Mathematica 54 (1985) 95-104.
© 1985 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht. Printed in The Netherlands.
Introduction
Not
enough
is known aboutcovering
spaces of aprojective, non-singular variety/C
of dimensionbigger
than 1. In thisconnection,
thefollowing question
remains unanswered."Is the universal
covering
space of aprojective, nonsingular variety/C holomorphically
convex?."See
[9, Chapter IX]
for a discussion of thisquestion.
Recall that acomplex
manifold X isholomorphically
convex ifgiven
any sequence ofpoints
XI, ... xn, ... without a limitpoint,
there exists aholomorphic function f on X
such that the sequencef ( xn )
is unbounded. Acompact, complex
manifold isclearly holomorphically
convex. In this paper, we will prove thefollowing.
THEOREM: Let S be an
irreducible, non-singular, projective surface/C
withan
elliptic fibration
7r: S - à.If
’TT has at least onesingular fibre
which isnot
of
the typemIo (see §1 for
thenotation),
then anyunramified covering of S is holomorphically
convex.If
all thesingular fibres of
7r areof mIo type,
then the universalcovering
spaceof
S isholomorphically
convex.We will
give
anexample (cf.
Morimoto[7],
p.262)
of an abeliansurface
(which
isactually
aproduct
ofelliptic curves) having
aregular,
unramified cover which is not
holomorphically
convex. As acorollary
ofthe
theorem,
weget
thefollowing:
Let S be a
projective, irreducible, non-singular elliptic surface/C
suchthat the
elliptic
fibration S - à has at least onesingular
fibre which is not of thetype mlo . Suppose
C c S is an irreducible curve withC 2
> 0.Then the
image
of the fundamental group of thenon-singular
model of Chas finite index in the fundamental group of S.
In
particular
if C isrational,
then 7r must have at least onesingular
fibre not of
mIo type
and henceffl(S)
is finite. This result has beenconjectured by
M. Nori forarbitrary projective, non-singular,
irreducible surface. See[8]
for some results about thisquestion.
One result in this paper is that the
image I,
of the fundamental groupof a
good
fibre of anelliptic
fibration S ---> à(having
at least onesingular
fibre not of the
type mIo )
in77,(S)
is acyclic
group of odd order( I
is trivial if à =P’).
This fact is crucial for theholomorphic convexity
ofcoverings
of S. S Iitaka has described the fundamental group of anElliptic
Surface in[3].
The extra information about’TT} (S) given
in thispaper
supplements
litaka’s results.We would like to thank M. Nori and R.R. Simha for many useful comments about the
problems
dealt in this paper.§1.
Notation andpreliminaries
For a
compact, complex
surfaceS,
we will use thefollowing
notation.We will use the definitions of
elliptic surface, multiple fibre, multiplicity
of a
singular
fibre as in K. Kodaira’s fundamental papers[4].
Kodairahas described the
possible singular
fibres of anelliptic
fibration S --> à where S and à need not becompact. Only possible multiple
fibres are ofthe
type mIb
forb = 0, 1, ....
HeremIo
stands for anelliptic
curveoccuring
withmultiplicity
m.First,
let S be anirreducible, projective, non-singular surface/C
andS - à
77’ be anelliptic
fibration with à acompact
Riemann surface of genus g.Since iT,
is a birational invariant and the conclusions aboutholomorphic convexity
ofcoverings
of S arepreserved
afterblowing
uppoints
onS,
we will assumethroughout
that no fibre of qr contains anexceptional
curve of the 1 st kind.We will recall some basic results about the
neighbourhoods
ofsingular
fibres of 77-. For
these,
see[5,6].
Let a E à be apoint
such that’1T*(a)
is asingular
fibre. Choose a small disc D around a in à and let 8 = aD be theloop going
around a once in the counter clock-wise direction. Choose apoint b E aD. Let ’TT-I(D) = U, ’TT-I (b) = E,p E E, U’ = U-F,i:
U’ - Ube the inclusion map. Then
’1TI (E)( =::
lL 0153Z)
is asubgroup
of 71"1(U’).
LEMMA A
[6]:
(1) If
F is notof the type mIh (h > 0),
then’1TI(F) = (1),
and hence’TTI(U) = (1),
since F is astrong deformation
retractof
U.(2)
Let F beof
the typemIh.
Then 3loops /3,
y in E at p and aloop
a inU’ at p such that ’TT#
(a)
= 8 andfl,
y generate77, (E). ’TTI(U’)
isgiven by
97
Further
if h > 1,
then i#( /3)
=1,
’lTI(F) =
Z hence ’lTI(U) =
Z is gener- atedby i# (a)
andi#(-y). If
m =1,
theni#( a)
= 1.If
F isof
the typemIo,
then’TTI(E) injects
intoul (U)
which isisomorphic
to Z ED Z.
LEMMA B
[5J:
Let F beof
thetype mIh (h
>0).
Then there is anelliptic fibration S - à
such thatF = if*(a)
is asingular fibre of
type1 Ih (so, for
h =
0, Ê
is agood fibre of S ) and S - Ê
iscomplex-analytically isomorphic
to S
-.F. Furthermore,
the kernelsof
thehomomorphisms ’TTI(E) 7r,(U)
and
qrj ( E) - ’TTICU)
are the same, whereU
=if-I(D).
In Kodaira’s
terminology,
S is obtained fromS by performing
alogarithmic
transformation in U.."
LEMMA C
[1]:
Let S - à be anelliptic fibration
with à and Scompact,
as above. Assume r has at least onesingular fibre
which is notof
thetype mIo.
Then any
torsion, analytic
line bundle on S comesfrom
a divisorsupported
on the
fibres of
’TT.Further, if
’TT has nomultiple fibres,
then any torsion line bundle on S is thepull-back of
a torsion line bundle on A.PROOF: This is
essentially proved
inDolgacev’s
paper[1].
."
LEMMA D: Let S à be as in Lemma C and assume that ’TT has no
multiple fibres.
ThenHl ( S, Z)
istorsion-free.
PROOF:
By
LemmaC,
anyanalytic,
torsion line bundle L on S is of the formqr*(£J,
where .Pis a torsion line bundle on A. IfHl ( S, ll)
hastorsion,
thenH2(S, Z)
also has torsion. From thelong
exactcohomology
sequence ... -
H’(S, W ) -- À> H’(S, (9*)
-H2(S, Z ) - H2(S, C)
- ...any torsion-element z in
H 2 ( S, ll)
is thelst
chern class of a line bundleL’, cl ( L’)
= z.Suppose
nz = 0. Then 3 w eH1 ( S, (9),
withÀ(03BB)
= nL’.Let
L" = À(1 /na),
then nL’ = nL" in Pic S. But thenn ( L ) = 0
whereL = L’ - L". Also cl
(L)
= cl( L’)
sincecl ( L")
= 0. But L =’TT*(.P)
where£fis a torsion-line bundle on A.
cI(L) = ’lT*CI(2).
ButH 2 ( 0, Z) =
Zhence
ci( £éJ = 0,
soc1 (L)
=cl (L)
= 0 i.e. z = 0.§2. Description
of«i( S )
Let al’." ,ar be all the
points
in à for which7T*(ai)
is asingular
fibrewith
multiplicity m ; >
1. Letà’ = à - ( ai, ... , a,,)
and S =’TT-I(’),
S’ cS. For i =
1,... r
choose small open discsDi
in à aroundai (D. n D = 03B8
for
i# j).
Choose pi in-r (Di)
as a basepoint for Ui
=’TT-I(D;)
andU
=’TT-I(Di). By choosing
arcs from po to pi in S’ andconj ugating by
them we obtain
isomorphisms ’TTI(S’, p,) c-if ’lTI(S’, Po)
under which we aregoing
toidentify 7T](S’, p, )
with7T, (S’, po ).
Then7T](EI, p, ) gets
identifiedwith
’7T](E, PO)
whereE,
is the fibre of 7rthrough
p,. If a,,03B2,
y,, arechosen in
U’
as in LemmaA,
we shall continue to denote theirimages
in’7T](S’,Po)
alsoby
the samesymbols.
We alsodispense
away withwriting
down base
points.
S’ 1 A’ is a
C °°-fibration,
so we have an exact sequence 1’7T](E)
-Ir, (S) -ul (A’) - 1. Clearly
is a free group and hence the above sequence
splits.
Choose liftsx., y,
and al forxj, y; and 8i respectively
in 7TI( S’).
We can then consider 7TI( à’)
as a
subgroup
of7TI(S’) generated by x., jy,
al, ... , ar.For a base
f 03B2, y}
of7TI (E)
andany x E
7TI(,A’),
writeFor
1
1 s, letF,
be a fibre oftype mlIh with h, >-
1. For s +1
i t,let
F
be oftype m, Io
and for t + 1 i r letF,
be asimply-connected singular
fibre.By applying Van-Kampen’s
theoremfinitely
manytimes,
we obtain
’!T1 (S)
as thequotient
of’1T1 (S’) by
thefollowing
set ofrelations:
We are now
ready
to prove:THEOREM 1: Let S be an
irreducible, projective nonsingular surface /C
with03C0
an
elliptic fibration S - à
over a compact Riemannsurface of
genus g > 0.Let I denote the
image of
rl(E)
in r1,(S)
where E is anonsingular fibre.
Then we have an exact sequence
where
99
If
7T has at least onesingular fibre
notof
the typemlo,
then I is acyclic
group
of
oddorder; further if
g =0,
then I =(e).
PROOF: That we have the exact sequence
(*)
followsimmediately
fromthe considerations above. If 7T has at least one
simply
connectedsingular
fibre
F, t
+1
i r, from relations(iii)
it follows that I =(e).
Hencefrom now on we shall assume that qr has no
simply
connectedfibres,
i.e.r = t.
Let B be the
subgroup
of7T1 (E) generated by /31’’’. /3s. By
ourassumption, s >
1. Now I is aquotient
of’TTI(E)/B::::: ZI(d)
for somed > 0.
Let{/3, y}
be a basis of7T1(E)
such that/3
E B and ygenerates 7T1(E)/B.
From( * * )
it follows that7T1(S)
isgenerated
y,Xj’Yj’
1j
g and a,,1
1 r with thefollowing
set of relations:Let É 1 à
be theelliptic
fibration as in Lemma B(replacing
all themultiple
fibres of 7Tby simple singular fibres). If 13
denotes thesubgroup
of
7T}(E) generated by Pi (l i s),
then from LemmaB,
it follows that B =B.
Since à has nomultiple fibres,
in thepresentation 77,(S),
a, = 1 for1 i s )
Thus771(g)
is the groupIf H is the
subgroup
ofintegers generated by
theintegers d, bx, dx -
1 forx E
7Tl(Ll),
then it follows thatNow à has at least one
singular
fibre oftype llh,
so the sheaf 9 onS
constructed
by taking
thelst homology
groups(co-efficients
inZ)
ofregular
fibres of à is nonconstant.By
a result ofKodaira,
thisimplies
that
bl(g)
is even; see[4,
Theorem11.8].
Butby
LemmaD, H1(S, Z)
istorsion free. Thus
Z/ H
=(0).
If one of theintegers bx
isodd,
thenclearly
the
image
of7T 1 (E)
ini7l(S)
is acyclic
group of odd order. Ifbx
is evenfor
aIl XE7Tl(Ll’),
thendx
is odd for all x sinceaXdX - bxcx = ± 1.
Butthen
dx -
1 is even for all x. In this caseZ/H
cannot be trivial unless d is odd. Thus I is acyclic
group of odd order.If à =
PI,
thenbx
= 0 =dx -
1 for all x EF,
al commute with y. Thus H isgenerated by
d. But then d = 1 otherwiseHl (S, Z)
will have eitherodd rank or non-trivial
torsion,
which is notpossible.
Thiscompletes
theproof
of the theorem.§3. Applications
THEOREM 2: Let S be an irreducible
non-singular, projective surface/C
w
with an
elliptic fibration S -
A.(i) If
’1T has at least onesingular fibre
notof
the typemIo,
then anyunramified covering of
S isholomorphically
convex.(ii)
Ingeneral,
the universalcovering space S of
S isholomorphically
convex.
REMARK: We will
give
anexample
of an abelian surface S =El
XE2
withEi elliptic
curves such that S has an infinite sheeted unramifiedcovering
S with no non-constant
holomorphic functions;
inparticular
S is notholomorphically
convex. We shall need thefollowing:
LEMMA E:
Suppose
à= pl and
7T has at most twosingular fibres
and theseare
of
typemIo.
Then S isbirationally
a ruledsurface
and hence itsuniversal
covering S
isholomorphically
convex.PROOF: Let
7T*(al)
be asingular
fibre oftype m 1 Io,
i =1,
2. For the canonical bundleKs
ofS,
Kodaira hasproved
the formulaHere
Pal
is the divisor such that’TT*(ai) = miPi
and[Pa] ]
is the corre-sponding complex-analytic
line bundle.’
By
Noether’sformula X ( S, (9)
=(Ks2
+C2(S»112.
ButKs2
= 0 for ourelliptic
surface andc2 ( S )
isequal
to the sum of thetopological
Euler-characteristics of all the
singular
fibres of qr. ThusC2(S)
is also 0 andX (S, (9) =
0.Since any two
points in Pl are rationally equivalent,
we see thatWe see
easily
thatKs z [Pal]-l @ [Pa2]-B
thusforcing ] nKs] = §
forn > 1. This means that S is a
birationally
ruled surface.Similar
argument
shows that when 7T has at most onesingular
fibre(and
that too oftype mIo ),
S is abirationally
ruled surface. To see thatS,
the universal cover of S is
holomorphically
convex we can assume that S is arelatively
minimal model witha P 1-bundle S --->
A. Thenà # P
since101
x ( S, (9)
= 0.Pulling
back the fibration W to the universal coverLi
of A we see that SX 6Li
iscomplex analytically isomorphic to Ô X pl,
which isholomorphically
çonvex.PROOF OF THEOREM 2: Let a: W - à be the ramified
covering
with F asthe group of
analytic automorphisms
such thatW/r =
A.(In particular
W is
simply connected).
For anysubgroup ri
ofr,
thepull
backfibration
W/Tl
XAS
overW /f1, yields
anelliptic
fibrationXrl1 - WI]71
after
normalization,
such thatXrl S
is the unramifiedcovering
corre-sponding
to thesubgroup 7T}(Xr1) = p-l(f})
of7T}(S).
To prove
(i)
let H be anysubgroup
of7T}(S).
Putri
=p(77).
ThenIH
= (P (Ir,). By
theorem1,
1 is finite and hence H is of finite index in IH. IfSH
is thecovering
of S with7TI(SH)
=H,
thenclearly S. - Xr1
is afinite
covering.
SinceXI,, - W/Fl
hascompact
fibres andW/rl, being
aRiemann
surface,
isholomorphically
convex, it follows thatSH
is holo-morphically
convex.To prove
(ii), by (i)
it suffices to consider the case when allsingular
fibres are of the
type mIo. By
lemmaE,
we can further assume that either g > 0 or g = 0 and there are at least threesingular
fibres. But then oneeasily
checks thatord(ai) = mi
in I. Thisimplies
that the ramification index of a atQ E Q -1 (a i)
isprecisely
m i. Hence the fibrationX(I)
-> W isnon-singular.
If W isnoncompact
then it is contractible. Henceby
atheorem of Grauert
(see [2]) X(I) z W X E,
andhence S z
W > C. If W iscompact
then W zPl
andagain by
lemmaE, X(I)
is a ruled surface and hence in anycase S
isholomorphically
convex. Thiscompletes
theproof
of theorem 2.
AN EXAMPLE: For any irrational number À let
be the vectors in C X C. For any set A of elements in C
(or C X C)
letL [ A ] denote
the additivesubgroup of C(or C X C) generated by
A. Thenclearly
If
El
=C/L[1, log 2/’TTi] ]
andE2
=C IL [ 1, À log 2/ir i ]
are theelliptic
curves then it follows that S =
El X E2
=:: C XC / L[ VI’ V2’ V;, v ].
SinceL[vl, v2 , v3, v4 ] is
asubgroup
of inxed 2 inL [ v 1, v2 , V3,’V4] it
follows that S is a double cover ofX=CXC/L[Vl,V2,V3,V4].
Let W=C XCIL[ vl,
V2,v3].
Then W - X is an infinitecyclic
cover.Pulling
back thisvia the double
covering
S ---> Xyields
an infinitecyclic
coverS - S.
_
We claim
that 9
admits no nonconstantholomorphic
function. Since Sis a double cover of W it suffices to show that W does not admit any nonconstant
holomorphic
function. Since W isisomorphic
to C *x C * /Z
where Z =
(g)
acts on C* X C*via,
it follows that a
holomorphic
functionf
on W isgiven by
aholomorphic
functionf on C*
X C* invariant under the Z-action. Letbe the Laurent series for
/.
It follows thatalj = aij2i+"Aj
for every( i, j ).
Thus if
aij =1=
0 then i +À j
=0;
since À is irrational this means(il j) (0, 0). Thus f and hence f is
a constant.As a
corollary
of Theorem 2 we prove thePROPOSITION: Let S be an
irreducible, non-singular projective surface
with77’
an
elliptic fibration
S - A. Let C c S be anirreducible, complete
curvewith
C2 > 0.
Assume thatX (S, (9)
> 0. Then[’TTI (8):
lm7r, (C)]
00,where
C -
C is thenon-singular
modelof
C.CROLLARY:
If
C isrational,
then ’TTI( S )
isfinite.
REMARKS:
(1)
If C isrational,
we will show later thatq(S) = 0
and henceX (S, (9) > 0.
(2)
M.V. Nori hasgiven
anexample
of anelliptic
fibration à withX(S, (9)
= 0 and an irreducible curve C c S withC2 > 0
such that[’TTI (S): lm ’TTI (C)] = 00.
(3)
Thearguments
in theproof
of theproposition
show that if wedelete the
condition C2
>0,
then we can still conclude that[ Im irl(C);
Imirl(C]
oo in’TTI (S). Further,
if C is a connectedchain of rational curves then we can conclude that Im
’TTI (C)
isfinite in
?’Tl (S).
PROOF OF THE PROPOSITION:
By
theargument
at the end of Proof of LemmaE X (S, (9) > 0 implies
that qr has at least onesingular
fibre not of103
- p
the
type mIo.
Let H = Im’TTl(C) C 77,(S).
Consider thecovering S - S
such that
q;#’TTl(S) = H. By
Theorem2, S
isholomorphically
convex.Since
C 2
>0,
it can be shown thati7l(C)
---->’TTl(S)
issurjective.
See[8] for
a
proof. Hence q;-l(C)
is a connected curve onS. Also, by construction,
r
C - S lifts to C -
S.
Letq; -l( C) = U Ci
whereCi,....are
the irreduci-i=l
ble
components
ofq;-I(C). Corresponding
to eachC;, 3
aunique
lift ofthe map C - S to
C - É
which hasCl
as theimage
ofC.
Hence eachC,
is
compact.
Choosepoints
xl EC; .
If the set(XI, X2, ... 1
isinfinite,
it hasno limit
point.
In this case 3 aholomorphic function f such that f ( xn )
isunbounded as n - oo. But since each
Ci
iscompact
andU Ci
is con-nected, f
has to be constant onu Ci.
Thismeans r
is finite and thecovering - S
is of finitedegree
i.e.[’TTI (S):
Im’171 ( C)]
oo.For the
proof
of thecorollary,
we need thefollowing.
LEMMA:
If S is a non-singular, irreducible, projective surface
and C c S anirreducible, complete,
rational curve withC2
>0,
thenq(S)
= 0.PROOF: There are several
proofs
of this result. We willgive
one due toM.P.
Murthy.
’"
Let S - Alb S be the
morphism
from S to its Albanesevariety.
Clearly qf(C)
is apoint.
If theimage
of S in A1 B S is a surfaceV,
thenby
thenegative
definiteness of the intersection form on the inverseimage
of a
point
ofV, C2
will have to benegative,
which is not true.If (P(S)
isa curve, then the intersection form on any fibre of the map
S ’¥(S)
can be seen to be
negative
semi-definite. This shows that Alb S is apoint
i.e.
q( S ) = 0.
REMARK :
(1)
From the classification ofalgebraic surface,
we see now that for any surface ofspecial type,
the universalcovering
space isholomorphi- cally
convex(because
forruled, rational,
K -3,
abelian surfaces this is easy toverify
and allEnriques
surfaces are known to haveelliptic fibrations).
(2)
In the aboveProposition,
when C isrational,
it can be shown that theonly possible
fundamental groups of S are finitecyclic
group, dihedral group of 2 nelements,
tetrahedral group with 12elements,
octahedral group with 24 elements or icosahedral group on 60 elements.References
[1] I. DOLGACEV: On the Severi hypothesis concerning simply-connected algebraic Surfaces,
Soviet Math. Doklady 7 (1966).
[2] H. GRAUERT: Analytischen Faserungen uber Holomorph Vollstandigen Raumern, Math.
Ann. 133.
[3] S. IITAKA: Deformations of compact complex Surfaces III, J. Math. Soc. Japan 23 (4) (1971).
[4] K. KODAIRA: On compact analytic Surfaces II-III, Ann. of Math. 77 (1963); 78 (1963).
[5] K. KODAIRA: On the structure of compact, complex analytic Surfaces I, Amer. J. Math.
86 (1964).
[6] K. KODAIRA: On Homotopy K - 3 Surfaces. Essays on Topology and Related Topics Papers dedicated to George de Rham, Springer (1970).
[7] A. MORIMOTO: Non-compacted complex Lie groups. Proc. Conference on Complex Analysis Minneapolis (1964).
[8] M.V. NORI: Zariski’s conjecture and related problems. (to appear) École Normale
Superieure.
[9] I.R. SHAFAREVICH: Basic Algebraic Geometry. Springer-Verlag (1974).
(Oblatum 22-111-1983)
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