Formal deformation of curves with group scheme action (Q2485443)

Let \(Y\) be a curve over an algebraically closed field \(k\) of characteristic \(p>0\). Let \(W\) be a complete local ring with residue field \(k\) and \(G\) a finite flat group scheme over \(W\) which acts faithfully on \(Y\). Let \(\text{Def}(Y,G)\) be the functor which associates to a local Artinian \(W\)-algebra \(R\) with residue field \(k\) the set of isomorphism classes of \(G\)--equivariant deformations of \(Y\) to \(R\). The functor \(\text{Def}(Y,G)\) is studied using cohomological methods. The first 3 chapters of the paper give an exposition of certain cohomological methods for studying equivariant deformations of curves with group scheme actions. This theory is applied to the case of three point covers with bad reduction. There are three appendices including Picard stacks, the cohomology of affine group schemes and some spectral sequences.