Computing the Stable 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 prove some general properties of the stable reduction of this marked curve for a valuation of residue characteristic $2$ and refine an existing algorithm for its computation. We work out explicit examples up to genus $g=30$.