Abstract
We study the behavior of theta characteristics on an algebraic curve under the specialization map to a tropical curve. We show that each effective theta characteristic on the tropical curve is the specialization of 2 g-1 even theta characteristics and 2 g-1 odd theta characteristics. We then study the relationship between unramified double covers of a tropical curve and its theta characteristics, and use this to define the tropical Prym variety.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1391-1410 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Selecta Mathematica, New Series |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 1 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.
Funding
Acknowledgements The bulk of this paper was written during a Research in Pairs stay at Oberwolfach. We would like to thank the institute for providing ideal working conditions for exploring these ideas. The first author’s travel was supported by an AMS Simons travel grant, and the second author was partially support by DFG grant MA 4797/6-1. We are grateful to Matt Baker for insightful remarks on a previous version of this manuscript, and thank Sam Payne, Joe Rabinoff, Dhruv Ranganathan, and Farbod Shokrieh for fielding our questions. Finally, we thank the referees for their insightful remarks.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| AMS-Simons | |
| Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | MA 4797/6-1 |
Keywords
- 14H40
- 14T05
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Mathematics
- General Physics and Astronomy