Monodromy groups of Kloosterman and hypergeometric sheaves (Q2232152)

A Kloosterman sheaf \(\mathcal{K}l:=\mathcal{K}l_{\psi}(\chi _1,\ldots ,\chi _D)\) of rank \(D\geq 2\), is defined by an unordered list of \(D\) not necessarily distinct multiplicative characters of some finite subfield \(\mathbb{F}_q\) of \(\mathbb{F}_p\). Here \(p\) is a prime number and \(\psi\) is a nontrivial additive character of \(\mathbb{F}_p\), with values in \(\mu _p(\overline{\mathbb{Q}_{\ell}})\), where \(\ell \neq p\) is prime. The authors study the possible structures of monodromy groups of Kloosterman and hypergeometric sheaves on \(\mathbb{G}_m:=\mathbb{A}^1\setminus 0\) in characteristic \(p\). They show that most such sheaves satisfy a certain condition \((S+)\), which has very strong consequences on the monodromy groups. They classify the finite, almost quasisimple, groups that can occur as monodromy groups of Kloosterman and hypergeometric sheaves.