Potentially Good Reduction of Barsotti-Tate Groups

Abstract

Let R be a complete discrete valuation ring of mixed characteristic (0, p) with perfect residue field, K the fraction field of R. Suppose G is a Barsotti-Tate group (p-divisible group) defined over K which acquires good reduction over a finite extension K' of K. We prove that there exists a constant c which depends on the absolute ramification index e(K'/Q_p) and the height of G such that G has good reduction over K if and only if G[p^c] can be extended to a finite flat group scheme over R. For abelian varieties with potentially good reduction, this result generalizes Grothendieck's p-adic Neron-Ogg-Shafarevich criterion to finite level. We use methods that can be generalized to study semi-stable p-adic Galois representations with general Hodge-Tate weights, and in particular leads to a proof of a conjecture of Fontaine and gives a constant c as above that is independent of the height of G.