Toroidalization of locally toroidal morphisms from N-folds to surfaces

AbstractThe toroidalization conjecture of D. Abramovich, K. Karu, K. Matsuki, and J. Wlodarczyk asks whether any given morphism of nonsingular varieties over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero can be modified into a toroidal morphism. Following a suggestion by Dale Cutkosky, we define the notion of locally toroidal morphisms and ask whether any locally toroidal morphism can be modified into a toroidal morphism. In this paper, we answer the question in the affirmative when the morphism is between any arbitrary variety and a surface