Moduli of abelian surfaces, symmetric theta structures and theta characteristics

Abstract

We study the birational geometry of some moduli spaces of abelian varieties with extra structure: in particular, with a symmetric theta structure and an odd theta characteristic. For a $(d_1,d_2)$-polarized abelian surface, we show how the parities of the $d_i$ influence the relation between canonical level structures and symmetric theta structures. For certain values of $d_1$ and $d_2$, a theta characteristic is needed in order to define Theta-null maps. We use these Theta-null maps and preceding work of other authors on the representations of the Heisenberg group to study the birational geometry and the Kodaira dimension of these moduli spaces.