Polarizations of Prym varieties for Weyl groups via abelianization

Abstract

Let $\pi :Z\to X$ be a Galois covering of smooth projective curves with Galois group the Weyl group of a simple and simply connected Lie group $G$. For any dominant weight $\lambda$ consider the curve $Y=Z/\mathrm{Stab}(\lambda )$. The Kanev correspondence defines an abelian subvariety $P_{\lambda }$ of the Jacobian of $Y$. We compute the type of the polarization of the restriction of the canonical principal polarization of $\mathrm{Jac}(Y)$ to $P_{\lambda }$ in some cases. In particular, in the case of the group $E_8$ we obtain families of Prym-Tyurin varieties. The main idea is the use of an abelianization map of the Donagi–Prym variety to the moduli stack of principal $G$-bundles on the curve $X$.