Jordan groups and algebraic surfaces (Q2353479)

In [in: Affine algebraic geometry: The Russell Festschrift. Outgrow of an international conference, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada. June 1--5, 2009, held in honour of Professor Peter Russell on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS). 289--311 (2011; Zbl 1242.14044)], \textit{V. L. Popov} asked whether for every algebraic surface \(S\) over \(k\) (where \(k\) is an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero), \(\mathrm{Aut}(S)\) is a Jordan group. So far, every known case led to a positive answer. The authors treat the last remaining open case in this article, namely the case that \(S\) is birationally (but not biregularly) isomorphic to a product \(X\times \mathbb{P}^1\), where \(X\) is an elliptic curve. Whenever \(S\) is a projective surface, by a previous article of the second author, the answer to Popov's question is known to be positive, too. In their main theorem, the authors thus extend this result and prove: If \(X\) is an elliptic curve over \(k\) an \(S\) is an irreducible normal algebraic surface that is birationally isomorphic to \(X\times \mathbb{P}^1\), then \(\mathrm{Aut}(S)\) is a Jordan group. The proof first reduces to the case that \(S\) is a smooth quasi-projective surface. Then a minimal closure (i.e. a projective surface \(\overline{S}\), such that every \((-1)\)-curve on \(\overline{S}\) meets \(S\)) is considered and the authors show that the latter is Jordan. By discussing properties of minimal closures, they derive that \(\mathrm{Aut}(S)\) has to be Jordan, too.