Some remarks on Brauer groups of K3 surfaces

We discuss the geometry of the genus one fibrations associated to an elliptic fibration on a K3 surface. We show that the two-torsion subgroup of the Brauer group of a general elliptic fibration is naturally isomorphic to the two-torsion of the Jacobian of a curve associated to the fibration. We remark that this is related to Recillas' trigonal construction. Finally we discuss the two-torsion in the Brauer group of a general K3 surface with a polarisation of degree two.Comment: This replacement has a more general theorem (thm 6.2) on Brauer groups of double covers of rational surfaces. Corrected some typos, updated references. To appear in Advances in Mathematic

Nikulin involutions on K3 surfaces

We study the maps induced on cohomology by a Nikulin (i.e. a symplectic) involution on a K3 surface. We parametrize the eleven dimensional irreducible components of the moduli space of algebraic K3 surfaces with a Nikulin involution and we give examples of the general K3 surface in various components. We conclude with some remarks on Morrison-Nikulin involutions, these are Nikulin involutions which interchange two copies of E_8(-1) in the Neron Severi group.Comment: 24 page