On abelian automorphism groups of surfaces of general type (Q1909408)

It is well-known that for a complex curve \(C\) of genus \(g\geq 2\), that its total automorphism group (resp. abelian automorphism group) is of order \(\leq 84(g-1)= 42 \deg (K_C)\) (resp. \(\leq 4g+4)\), where \(K_C\) is the canonical divisor on \(C\). \textit{G. Xiao} [Invent. Math. 102, No. 3, 619-631 (1990; Zbl 0739.14024)] has generalized these results to surfaces of general type, proving that for a complex minimal smooth projective surface \(S\) of general type, its total automorphism group (resp. abelian automorphism group) is of order \(\leq 42^2K^2_S\) (resp. \(\leq 52K^2_S +32\), provided \(K^2_S \geq 140)\), where \(K_S\) is the canonical divisor on \(S\). The coefficient \(42^2\) is the best for the total automorphism group, but the coefficient 52 does not seem to be the best possible as Xiao has pointed out in his paper quoted above. In the paper under review, with arguments that are inspired by the work of Xiao, the author improves Xiao's results by the following theorem: Let \(S\) be a complex minimal smooth surface of general type, \(K\) the canonical divisor on \(S\) and \(\chi ({\mathcal O}_S)\) the Euler characteristic of the structure sheaf of \(S\). If \(G\) is an abelian group of automorphisms of \(S\), then \(G\) is of order \(\leq 36K^2 +24\), provided \(\chi ({\mathcal O}_S) \geq 8\).