Related papers: Surface braid groups, finite Heisenberg covers and…

We study some special systems of generators on finite groups, introduced in previous work by the first author and called "diagonal double Kodaira structures", in order to investigate non-abelian, finite quotients of the pure braid group on…

Let $\Sigma_b$ be a closed Riemann surface of genus $b$. We give an account of some results obtained in the recent papers \cite{CaPol19, Pol20, PolSab21} and concerning what we call here \emph{pure braid quotients},namely non-abelian finite…

Let $\Sigma_b$ be a closed Riemann surface of genus $b$. We investigate finite quotients $G$ of the pure braid group on two strands $\mathsf{P}_2(\Sigma_b)$ which do not factor through $\pi_1(\Sigma_b \times \Sigma_b)$. Building on our…

The existence of a Kodaira fibration, i.e., of a fibration of a compact complex surface $S$ onto a complex curve $B$ which is a differentiable but not a holomorphic bundle, forces the geographical slope $ \nu(S) = c_1^2 (S) / c_2 (S)$ to…

Kodaira fibrations are surfaces of general type with a non-isotrivial fibration, which are differentiable fibre bundles. They are known to have positive signature divisible by $4$. Examples are known only with signature 16 and more. We…

We construct examples of non-isotrivial algebraic families of smooth complex projective curves over a curve of genus 2. This solves a problem from Kirby's list of problems in low-dimensional topology. Namely, we show that 2 is the smallest…

Kodaira fibred surfaces are a remarkable example of projective classifying spaces, and there are still many intriguing open questions concerning them, especially the slope question. The topological characterization of Kodaira fibrations is…

We introduce some special presentations on finite groups, that we call "diagonal double Kodaira structures" and whose existence is equivalent to the existence of some special Kodaira fibred surfaces, that we call "diagonal double Kodaira…

Let Y be a projective non-singular curve of genus g, X a projective manifold, both defined over the field of complex numbers, and let f:X ---> Y be a surjective morphism with general fibre F. If the Kodaira dimension of X is non-negative,…

We study a novel type of braid groups on a closed orientable surface $\Sigma$. These are fundamental groups of certain manifolds that are hybrids between symmetric products and configuration spaces of points on $\Sigma$; a class of examples…

A Kodaira fibration is a non-isotrivial fibration $f\colon S\rightarrow B$ from a smooth algebraic surface $S$ to a smooth algebraic curve $B$ such that all fibers are smooth algebraic curves of genus $g$. Such fibrations arise as complete…

We study several geometric and group theoretical problems related to Kodaira fibrations, to more general families of Riemann surfaces, and to surface-by-surface groups. First we provide constraints on Kodaira fibrations that fiber in more…

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…

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…

Let f: X->B be a fibred surface of genus g whose general fibre is a double cover of a smooth curve of genus gamma. We show that, for g > 4gamma+1, the number 4(g-1)/(g-gamma) is a sharp lower bound for the slope of f, proving a conjecture…

We study the existence problem and the enumeration problem for sections of Serre fibrations over compact orientable surfaces. When the fundamental group of the fiber is finite, a complete solution is given in terms of 2-dimensional…

We formulate a tropical analogue of Grothendieck's section conjecture: that for every stable graph G of genus g>2, and every field k, the generic curve with reduction type G over k satisfies the section conjecture. We prove many cases of…

We study smooth bundles over surfaces with highly connected almost parallelizable fiber $M$ of even dimension, providing necessary conditions for a manifold to be bordant to the total space of such a bundle and showing that, in most cases,…

Fujita's second theorem for K\"ahler fibre spaces over a curve asserts that the direct image $V$ of the relative dualizing sheaf splits as the direct sum $ V = A \oplus Q$, where $A$ is ample and $Q$ is unitary flat. We focus on our…

For a closed manifold $M$, let Fib$(M)$ be the number of distinct fiberings of $M$ as a fiber bundle with fiber a closed surface. In this paper we give the first computation of Fib$(M)$ where $1<\text{Fib}(M)<\infty$ but $M$ is not a…