Arithmeticity of the monodromy of the Wiman-Edge pencil

Abstract

The Wiman–Edge pencil is the universal family of projective, genus 6, complex-algebraic curves endowed with a faithful action of the icosahedral group. The goal of this paper is to prove that its monodromy group is commensurable with a Hilbert modular group; in particular is arithmetic. We then give a modular interpretation of this, as well as a uniformization of its base.