Reduction of Hyperelliptic Curves in Residue Characteristic 2

Abstract

Consider a hyperelliptic curve of genus $g$ over a field $K$ of characteristic zero. After extending $K$ we can view it as a marked curve with its $2g+2$ Weierstrass points. We present an explicit algorithm to compute the stable reduction of this marked curve for a valuation of residue characteristic $2$ over a finite extension of $K$. In the cases $g\le 2$ we work out relatively simple conditions for the structure of this reduction.

63 pages; typos fixed; comments welcome