A characterization of Inoue surfaces with $$p_g=0$$ p g = 0 and $$K^2=7$$ K 2 = 7

Abstract

Inoue constructed the first examples of smooth minimal complex surfaces of general type with \(p_g=0\) and \(K^2=7\). These surfaces are finite Galois covers of the 4-nodal cubic surface with the Galois group, the Klein group \(\mathbb {Z}_2\times \mathbb {Z}_2\). For such a surface S, the bicanonical map of S has degree 2 and it is composed with exactly one involution in the Galois group. The divisorial part of the fixed locus of this involution consists of two irreducible components: one is a genus 3 curve with self-intersection number 0 and the other is a genus 2 curve with self-intersection number \(-\,1\). Conversely, assume that S is a smooth minimal complex surface of general type with \(p_g=0\), \(K^2=7\) and having an involution \(\sigma \). We show that, if the divisorial part of the fixed locus of \(\sigma \) consists of two irreducible components \(R_1\) and \(R_2\), with \(g(R_1)=3, R_1^2=0, g(R_2)=2\) and \(R_2^2=-\,1\), then the Klein group \(\mathbb {Z}_2\times \mathbb {Z}_2\) acts faithfully on S and S is indeed an Inoue surface.