On maximal curves with Frobenius dimension 3 (Q1039269)

Let \(\mathbb{F}_{q^{2}}\) be a finite field with \(q^{2}\) elements, where \(q\) is a power of a prime \(p\). An \(\mathbb{F}_{q^{2}}\)-rational curve, that is a projective, geometrically irreducible, non-singular algebraic curve defined over \(\mathbb{F}_{q^{2}}\), is called \(\mathbb{F}_{q^{2}}\)-maximal if the number of its \(\mathbb{F}_{q^{2}}\)-rational points attains the Hasse-Weil upper bound \(q^2+1+2gq\), where \(g\) is the genus of the curve. For an \(\mathbb{F}_{q^{2}}\)-maximal curve \(\mathcal{C}\), the Frobenius linear series is the complete linear series \(|(q+1)P_{0}|\), where \(P_{0}\) is any \(\mathbb{F}_{q^{2}}\)-rational point on \(\mathcal{C}\). The projective dimension \(d\) of the \(|(q+1)P_{0}|\) is called Frobenius dimension of \(\mathcal{C}\). In this paper, a characterization of maximal curves with Frobenius dimension equal to \(3\) is provided. The main tool used is the natural embedding theorem for maximal curves. As an application of their results, the authors give the classification of maximal curves with Frobenius dimension \(3\) defined over the fields with \(16\) and \(25\) elements.