The stratification by automorphism groups of smooth plane sextic curves

Abstract

We obtain the list of automorphism groups for smooth plane sextic curves over an algebraically closed field K of characteristic p=0 or p>21. Moreover, we assign to each group a geometrically complete family over K describing its corresponding stratum, that is, a generic defining polynomial equation with parameters such that any curve in the stratum is K-isomorphic to a non-singular plane model obtained by specializing the values of those parameters over K.