Automorphism groups of Ree type Deligne-Lusztig curves and function fields.

This paper studies and proves uniqueness of a family of curves and corresponding function fields associated to Ree groups [9]. The curves are particular in two senses. First of all, they have the largest possible number of irrational points curves ofthat genera can have according to Weil's explicit formulas. Secondly, they have very large groups of automorphisms compared to their genera their sizes exceed by far the Hurwitz upper bound 84(g— 1) valid in characteristic zero [6].