arXiv2013
In this article we investigate the automorphism group of an asymptotically optimal tower of function fields introduced by Garcia and Stichtenoth. In particular we provide a detailed description of the decomposition group of some rational places. This group acts on the algebraic-geometric standard codes obtained by the Garcia-Stichtenoth tower exceeding the Gilbert-Varshamov bound. The fields fixed by the decomposition groups form an asymptotically optimal non-Galois subtower, which has been first found by Bezerra and Garcia and yields an improvement for computing codes above the Gilbert-Varshamov bound. In this article we also describe its proportionality to the Garcia-Stichtenoth tower and obtain new precise results on its rational places and their Weierstraß semigroups.