Automorphisms of pointless surfaces

Abstract

For a geometrically rational surface X over an arbitrary field of characteristic different from 2 and 3 that contains all roots of 1, we show that either X is birational to a product of a projective line and a conic, or the group of birational automorphisms of X has bounded finite subgroups. As a key step in the proof, we show boundedness of finite subgroups in any anisotropic reductive algebraic group over a perfect field that contains all roots of 1. Also, we provide applications to Jordan property for groups of birational automorphisms.