A new tower over cubic finite fields

Abstract

We present a new explicit tower of function fields (Fn)n≥0 over the finite field with ` = q3 elements, where the limit of the ratios (number of rational places of Fn)/(genus of Fn) is bigger or equal to 2(q2 − 1)/(q + 2). This tower contains as a subtower the tower which was introduced by Bezerra– Garcia–Stichtenoth (see [3]), and in the particular case q = 2 it coincides with the tower of van der Geer–van der Vlugt (see [12]). Many features of the new tower are very similar to those of the optimal wild tower in [8] over the quadratic field Fq2 (whose modularity was shown in [6] by Elkies).