The structure of Frobenius kernels for automorphism group schemes

Abstract

We establish structure results for Frobenius kernels of automorphism group schemes for surfaces of general type in positive characteristic. It turns out that there are surprisingly few possibilities. This relies on properties of the famous Witt algebra, which is a simple Lie algebra without finite-dimensional counterpart over the complex numbers, together with its twisted forms. The result actually holds true for arbitrary proper integral schemes under the assumption that the Frobenius kernel has large isotropy group at the generic point. This property is measured by a new numerical invariant called the foliation rank.