The trigonal construction and the second moment of the tropical Prym variety

Abstract

We use the tropical trigonal construction to calculate the second moment of the tropical Prym variety of all double covers $\pi:\widetilde{\Gamma}\to \Gamma$ of tropical curves of genus $g(\Gamma)\leq 4$. The answer is expressed in terms of the signed graphic matroid of the double cover and consists a polynomial and piecewise-polynomial term. We relate the latter term, which does not occur in the analogous formula for the tropical Jacobian, to the problem of extending the Prym--Torelli map from the moduli space of admissible double covers to the second Voronoi compactification of the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties.