Two classes of hyperbolic surfaces in P^3

Abstract

We construct two classes of singular Kobayashi hyperbolic surfaces in $P^3$. The first consists of generic projections of the cartesian square $V = C \times C$ of a generic genus $g \ge 2$ curve $C$ smoothly embedded in $P^5$. These surfaces have C-hyperbolic normalizations; we give some lower bounds for their degrees and provide an example of degree 32. The second class of examples of hyperbolic surfaces in $P^3$ is provided by generic projections of the symmetric square $V' = C_2$ of a generic genus $g \ge 3$ curve $C$. The minimal degree of these surfaces is 16, but this time the normalizations are not C-hyperbolic.