RENDICONTI DELL'ISTITUTO DI MATEMATICA DELL'UNIVERSITAÌ€ DI TRIESTE
Abstract
Motivated by the analogous problem for hyperbolic 3-manifolds, by topological methods using the language of orbifolds we give a short and efficient classification of the finite diffeomorphism groups of closed orientable surfaces of genus g > 1 which contain a hyperelliptic involution; in particular, for each g > 1 we determine the maximal possible order of such a group.
