Families of p-divisible groups with constant Newton polygon

Abstract

A p-divisible group over a base scheme in characteristic p in general does not admit a slope filtration. Let X be a p-divisible group with constant Newton polygon over a normal noetherian scheme S; we prove that there exists an isogeny from X to Y such that Y admits a slope filtration. In case S is regular this was proved by N. Katz for dim(S) = 1 and by T. Zink for dim(S) > 0. We give an example of a p-divisible group over a non-normal base which does not admit an isogeny to a p-divisible group with a slope filtration.