On the slope of fibred surfaces

Abstract

We give an asymptotically sharp lower bound for the slope λ(f) of a fibration f : S → B, where S is a surface and B is a curve, if there exists an involution on the general fibre F of f. We also construct a new lower bound of λ(f) depending increasingly on the irregularity of S; as an application of this new bound we have a criteria to control the existence of other fibrations on S.