Automorphism groups and invariant theory on ℙN

Abstract

Let [Formula: see text] be a field and [Formula: see text] a morphism. There is a natural conjugation action on the space of such morphisms by elements of the projective linear group [Formula: see text]. The group of automorphisms, or stabilizer group, of a given [Formula: see text] for this action is known to be a finite group. In this paper, we apply methods of invariant theory to automorphism groups by addressing two mainly computational problems. First, given a finite subgroup of [Formula: see text], determine endomorphisms of [Formula: see text] with that group as a subgroup of its automorphism group. In particular, we show that every finite subgroup occurs infinitely often and discuss some associated rationality problems. Inversely, given an endomorphism, determine its automorphism group. In particular, we extend the Faber–Manes–Viray fixed-point algorithm for [Formula: see text] to endomorphisms of [Formula: see text]. A key component is an explicit bound on the size of the automorphism group depending on the degree of the endomorphism.