Terminal orders on arithmetic surfaces

Abstract

The local structure of terminal Brauer classes on arithmetic surfaces was classified (2021), generalising the classification on geometric surfaces (2005). Part of the interest in these classifications is that it enables the minimal model program to be applied to the noncommutative setting of orders on surfaces. We give étale local structure theorems for terminal orders on arithmetic surfaces, at least when the degree is a prime $p>5$. This generalises the structure theorem given in the geometric case. They can all be explicitly constructed as algebras of matrices over symbols. From this description one sees that such terminal orders all have global dimension two, thus generalising the fact that terminal (commutative) surfaces are smooth and hence homologically regular.