Inertia groups and abelian surfaces (Q1767664)

Let \(A\) be an abelian variety over a local field \(F\). The inertia group associated to \(A/F\) can be considered as the Galois group of the smallest totally ramified extension over which the abelian variety has semistable reduction. In the case of an elliptic curve \textit{J.-P. Serre} [Invent. Math. 15, 259--331 (1972; Zbl 0235.14012)] and \textit{A. Kraus} [Manuscr. Math. 69, No. 4, 353--385 (1990; Zbl 0792.14014)] classified the inertia groups which occur. The present paper gives a classification of the finite groups that occur as inertia groups associated to abelian surfaces. If \(p\) denotes the characteristic of the field, such a group is always an extension of a cyclic group of order prime to \(p\) by a \(p\)-group admitting some special representation. The authors classify first the finite groups with these properties and then show that every such group occurs as an inertia group of an abelian surface.