Pluriadjoint bundles of polarized surfaces

LetX be a complex connected projective smooth algebraic surface and letL be an ample line bundle onX. The maps associated with the pluriadjoint bundles (K _X L) ¹,t2, are studied by combining an ampleness result forK _X L with a very recent result by Reider. It turns out that apart from some exceptions and up to reductions, 1) (K _X L)³ is very ample; 2) (K _X L) ² is ample and spanned by global sections and is very ample unless eitherg (L)=2 (arithmetic genus ofL) orX contains an elliptic curveE withE ²=0,E·L=1;3) when (K _X L) ² is not very ample, the associated map has degree 4, equality implying thatg (L)=2 and .