Automorphisms of cubic surfaces without points

Abstract

We classify finite groups acting by birational transformations of a nontrivial Severi–Brauer surface over a field of characteristic zero that are not conjugate to subgroups of the automorphism group. Also, we show that the automorphism group of a smooth cubic surface over a field [Formula: see text] of characteristic zero that has no [Formula: see text]-points is abelian, and find a sharp bound for the Jordan constants of birational automorphism groups of such cubic surfaces.