A volume maximizing canonical surface in 3-space

Abstract

Answering a question posed by Enriques, we construct a minimal smooth algebraic surface $S$ of general type over the complex numbers with $K^2=45$ and $p_g=4$, and with birational canonical map. Our surface is a regular (q=0) ball quotient which is an etale quotient of a Hirzebruch covering of the plane. The canonical system $|K_S|$ has a fixed part and the degree of the canonical image is 19.

14 pages