A twisted bicanonical system with base points

Abstract

Abstract. By a theorem of Reider, a twisted bicanonical system, that means a linear system of divisors numerically equivalent to a bicanonical divisor, on a minimal surface of general type, is base point free if K 2 S ≥ 5. Twisted bicanonical systems with base points are known in literature only for K 2 = 1, 2. We prove in this paper that all surfaces in a family of surfaces with K 2 = 3 constructed in a previous paper with G. Bini and J. Neves have a twisted bicanonical system (different from the bicanonical system) with two base points. We show that the map induced by the above twisted bicanonical system is birational, and describe in detail the closure of its image and its singular locus. Inspired by this description, we reduce the problem of constructing a minimal surface of general type with K 2 = 3 whose bicanonical system has base points, under some reasonable assumptions, to the problem of constructing a curve in P 3 with certain properties.