The integral Picard groups of low-degree Hurwitz spaces

Abstract

We compute the Picard groups with integral coefficients of the Hurwitz stacks parametrizing degree $4$ and $5$ covers of $\mathbb{P}^1$. As a consequence, we also determine the integral Picard groups of the Hurwitz stacks parametrizing simply branched covers. For simple branching, the Picard groups are finite, with order depending on the genus.