Surfaces of Albanese general type and the Severi Conjecture

Abstract

In 1932 F. Severi claimed, with an incorrect proof, that every smooth minimal projective surface $S$ such that the bundle $\Omega^1_S$ is generically generated by global sections satisfies the topological inequality $2c_1^2(S)\ge c_2(S)$. According to Enriques-Kodaira classification, the above inequality is easily verified when the Kodaira dimension of the surface is $\le 1$, while for surfaces of general type it is still an open problem known as Severi conjecture. In this paper we prove Severi conjecture under the additional mild hypothesis that $S$ has ample canonical bundle. Moreover, under the same assumption, we prove that $2c_1^2(S)=c_2(S)$ if and only if $S$ is a double cover of an abelian surface.