The Hyperelliptic Theta Map and Osculating Projections

Abstract

Let C be a hyperelliptic curve of genus $g \geq 3$ . In this paper, we give a new geometric description of the theta map for moduli spaces of rank 2 semistable vector bundles on C with trivial determinant. In order to do this, we describe a fibration of (a birational model of) the moduli space, whose fibers are GIT quotients $(\mathbb {P}^1)^{2g}//\text {PGL(2)}$ . Then, we identify the restriction of the theta map to these GIT quotients with some explicit degree 2 osculating projection. As a corollary of this construction, we obtain a birational inclusion of a fibration in Kummer $(g-1)$ -varieties over $\mathbb {P}^g$ inside the ramification locus of the theta map.