An abelian variety defined over an algebraically closed field k of positive
characteristic is supersingular if it is isogenous to a product of
supersingular elliptic curves and is superspecial if it is isomorphic to a
product of supersingular elliptic curves. In this paper, the superspecial
condition is generalized by defining the superspecial rank of an abelian
variety, which is an invariant of its p-torsion. The main results in this paper
are about the superspecial rank of supersingular abelian varieties and
Jacobians of curves. For example, it turns out that the superspecial rank
determines information about the decomposition of a supersingular abelian
variety up to isomorphism; namely it is a bound for the maximal number of
supersingular elliptic curves appearing in such a decomposition.Comment: V2: New coauthor, major rewrit
