No label defined (Q4484969)

A famous theorem of A. Weil gives an upper bound for the number of rational points on curves over finite fields. A curve is called maximal if it attains this upper bound, the cardinality of the finite field being necessarily a square (say \(q^2)\). The genus \(g\) of a maximal curve satisfies \(g\leq q(q-1)/ 2\). The paper deals with the classification problem for maximal curves of a given genus. The first result on this problem is due to \textit{H. G. Rück} and \textit{H. Stichtenoth} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 457, 185-188 (1994; Zbl 0802.11053)] and they showed that the curve \(X^{q+1}+ Y^{q+1}= Z^{q+1}\) is the unique maximal curve with \(g= q(q-1)/ 2\). The main tool here is the action of Frobenius on the Jacobian variety of a maximal curve. The main result of the paper under review is the classification of the curve \(X^m+ Y^m= Z^m\) with \(m= (q+1)/ 2\) as the unique maximal curve with genus \(g= (q-1) (q-3)/8\) having a nonsingular plane model. Besides the action of Frobenius on the Jacobian variety, the other main tool here is the theory of Frobenius orders of morphisms developed by \textit{K.-O. Stöhr} and \textit{J. F. Voloch} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 52, 1-19 (1986; Zbl 0593.14020)].