We prove cohomological vanishing criteria for the Ceresa cycle of a curve C embedded in its Jacobian J: (A) if $\mathrm{H}^3(J)^{\mathrm{Aut}(C)} = 0$, then the Ceresa cycle is torsion modulo rational equivalence; (B) if $\mathrm{H}^0(J, \Omega_J^3)^{\mathrm{Aut}(C)} = 0$, then the Ceresa cycle is torsion modulo algebraic equivalence, with criterion (B) conditional on the Hodge conjecture. We then use these criteria to study the simplest family of curves where (B) holds but (A) does not, namely the family of Picard curves $C \colon y^3 = x^4 + ax^2 + bx + c$. Criterion (B) and work of Schoen combine to show that the Ceresa cycle of a Picard curve is torsion in the Griffiths group. We furthermore determine exactly when it is torsion in the Chow group. As a byproduct, we deduce that there exist one-parameter families of plane quartic curves with torsion Ceresa Chow class; that the torsion locus in $\mathcal{M}_3$ of the Ceresa Chow class contains infinitely many components; and that the order of a torsion Ceresa Chow class of a Picard curve over a number field K is bounded, with the bound depending only on $[K\colon \mathbb{Q}]$. Finally, we determine which automorphism group strata are contained in the vanishing locus of the universal Ceresa cycle over $\mathcal{M}_3$.

We determine the list of automorphism groups for smooth plane septic curves over an algebraically closed field $K$ of characteristic $0$, as well as their signatures. For each group, we also provide a geometrically complete family over $K$, which consists of a generic defining polynomial equation describing each locus up to $K$-projective equivalence. Notably, we present two distinct examples of what we refer to as final strata of smooth plane curves.

In this work, we study the Humbert-Edge curves of type 5, defined as a complete intersection of four diagonal quadrics in ${\mathbb{P}}^5$. We characterize them using Kummer surfaces, and using the geometry of these surfaces, we construct some vanishing thetanulls on such curves. In addition, we describe an argument to give an isomorphism between the moduli space of Humbert-Edge curves of type 5 and the moduli space of hyperelliptic curves of genus 2, and we show how this argument can be generalized to state an isomorphism between the moduli space of hyperelliptic curves of genus $g=\frac{n-1}{2}$ and the moduli space of Humbert-Edge curves of type $n\geq 5$ where $n$ is an odd number.

We study the p-rank stratification of the moduli space of cyclic degree $\ell $ covers of the projective line in characteristic p for distinct primes p and $\ell $. The main result is about the intersection of the p-rank $0$ stratum with the boundary of the moduli space of curves. When $\ell =3$ and $p \equiv 2 \bmod 3$ is an odd prime, we prove that there exists a smooth trielliptic curve in characteristic p, for every genus g, signature type $(r,s)$, and p-rank f satisfying the clear necessary conditions.

We rewrite in modern language a classical construction by W. E. Edge showing a pencil of sextic nodal curves admitting A5 as its group of automorphism. Next, we discuss some other aspects of this pencil, such as the associated fibration and its connection to the singularities of the moduli of six-dimensional abelian varieties.

We study new families of curves that are suitable for efficiently parametrizing their moduli spaces. We explicitly construct such families for smooth plane quartics in order to determine unique representatives for the isomorphism classes of smooth plane quartics over finite fields. In this way, we can visualize the distributions of their traces of Frobenius. This leads to new observations on fluctuations with respect to the limiting symmetry imposed by the theory of Katz and Sarnak.

Explicit generators are found for the group G2 of automorphisms of the algebra of one-sided inverses of a polynomial algebra in two variables over a field. Moreover, it is proved that

where S2 is the symmetric group, is the 2-dimensional algebraic torus, E∞() is the subgroup of GL∞() generated by the elementary matrices. In the proof, we use and prove several results on the index of an operator. The final argument is the proof of the fact that K1() ≃ K*. The algebras and are noncommutative, non-Noetherian, and not domains.

We study the automorphism groups of the reduction of a modular curve X0(N) over primes p∤N.

Let k be an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic p. We consider which finite groups G have the property that every faithful action of G on a connected smooth projective curve over k lifts to characteristic zero. Oort conjectured that cyclic groups have this property. We show that if a cyclic-by-p group G has this property, then G must be either cyclic or dihedral, with the exception of A4 in characteristic two. This proves one direction of a strong form of the Oort conjecture.