Related papers: On fundamental groups related to the Hirzebruch su…

We take the fundamental group of the complement of the branch curve of a generic projection induced from canonical embedding of a surface. This group is stable on connected components of moduli spaces of surfaces. Since for many classes of…

The braid monodromy factorization of the branch curve of a surface of general type is known to be an invariant that completely determines the diffeomorphism type of the surface. Calculating this factorization is of high technical…

The main result in this paper is as follows: Let S be the branch curve (in the projective plan) of a generic projection of a Veronese surface. Then the fundamental group of the complement of S is an extension of a solvable group by a…

We argue that for a smooth surface S, considered as a ramified cover over the projective plane branched over a nodal-cuspidal curve B one could use the structure of the fundamental group of the complement of the branch curve to understand…

We discuss the applications of fundamental groups (of complements of curves) computations (and possibly the computations of the second homotopy group as a model over it) to the classification of algebraic surface. We prove that the…

This paper will appear in the Santa Cruz proceedings. An overview of the braid group techniques in the theory of algebraic surfaces, from Zariski to the latest results, is presented. An outline of the Van Kampen algorithm for computing…

This paper is the second in a series of three papers concerning the surface T times T, where T is a complex torus. We compute the fundamental group of the branch curve of the surface in C^2, using the van Kampen Theorem and the braid…

This paper is the second in a series. The first one describes pillow degenerations of a $K3$ surface with genus $g$. In this paper we study the $(2,2)$-pillow degeneration of a non-prime $K3$ surface and the braid monodromy of the branch…

In this paper we present an example of two polarized K3 surfaces which are not Fundamental Group Equivalent (their fundamental groups of the complement of the branch curves are not isomorphic; denoted by FGE) but the fundamental groups of…

In this manuscript we prove that if two cuspidal plane curves have equivalent braid monodromy factorizations, then they are smoothly isotopic in the plane. As a consequence of this and the Chisini conjecture, we obtain that if two…

Computation of the fundamental group of the complement in the complex plane of the branch curve S , of a generic projection of the Veronese surface to the plane is presented. This paper is a continuation of our previous papers: Braid Group…

Given a singular surface X, one can extract information on it by investigating the fundamental group $\pi_1(X - Sing_X)$. However, calculation of this group is non-trivial, but it can be simplified if a certain invariant of the branch curve…

We introduce and develop a language of semigroups over the braid groups for a study of braid monodromy factorizations (bmf's) of plane algebraic curves and other related objects. As an application we give a new proof of Orevkov's theorem on…

Motivated by the problem of Hurwitz equivalence of $\Delta ^2$ factorization in the braid group, we address the problem of Hurwitz equivalence in the symmetric group, obtained by projecting the $\Delta ^2$ factorizations into $S_n$. We get…

We prove that the complex surfaces parametrizing cuboids and face cuboids, as well as their minimal resolution of singularities, have trivial fundamental group. We then compute the fundamental group of certain open smooth subvarieties of…

A formula for factorizations of the full twist in the braid group $Br_{2m}$ depending on any four factorizations of the full twist in $Br_{m}$ is given. Applying this formula, a symplectic 4-manifold $X$ and two isotopic generic coverings…

In this paper, we give a fully detailed exposition of computing fundamental groups of complements of line arrangements using the Moishezon-Teicher technique for computing the braid monodromy of a curve and the Van-Kampen theorem which…

We will prove that given a genus-2 fibration $f: X \rightarrow C$ on a smooth projective surface $X$ such that $b_1(X)=b_1(C)+2$, the fundamental group of $X$ is almost isomorphic to $\pi_1(C) \times \pi_1(E)$, where $E$ is an elliptic…

The fundamental group of a smooth projective variety is fibered if it maps onto the fundamental group of smooth curve of genus 2 or more. The goal of this paper is to establish some strong restrictions on these groups, and in particular on…

We show that branched coverings of surfaces of large enough genus arise as characteristic maps of braided surfaces that is, lift to embeddings in the product of the surface with $\mathbb R^2$. This result is nontrivial already for…