Abstract. Under certain numerical conditions, the gonality of curves on an elliptic ruled surface is twice the degree of the bundle map of the ruled surface and the Clifford index of such curves is computed by pencils of minimal degree.
IntroductionThroughout this paper, a curve or a surface always means a projective, reduced and irreducible one over C. This is a non-negative integer by Clifford's Theorem. A divisor D is said to compute the Clifford index of X if D contributes to the Clifford index of X and satisfies that