Moduli of theta-characteristics via Nikulin surfaces

We study moduli spaces of K3 surfaces endowed with a Nikulin involution and their image in the moduli space R _g of Prym curves of genus g. We observe a striking analogy with Mukai’s well-known work on ordinary K3 surfaces. Many of Mukai’s results have a very precise Prym-Nikulin analogue, for instance a general Prym curve from R _g is a section of a Nikulin surface if and only if g ≤ 7 and g ≠ 6. Furthermore, R ₇ has the structure of a fibre space over the corresponding moduli space of polarized Nikulin surfaces. We then use these results to study the geometry of the moduli space of even spin curves, with special emphasis on the transition case of which is a 21-dimensional Calabi-Yau variety.