In an article in the Pure and Applied Mathematics Quarterly in 2008, Duke and Jenkins investigated a certain natural basis of the space of weakly holomorphic modular forms for the full modular group $SL_2({\bf Z})$. We show here that their results can be generalized to certain moonshine groups, also allowing characters that are real on the underlying subgroup $Γ_0(N)$.
Generalised moonshine is reviewed from the point of view of holomorphic orbifolds, putting special emphasis on the role of the third cohomology group H^3(G, U(1)) in characterising consistent constructions. These ideas are then applied to the case of Mathieu moonshine, i.e. the recently discovered connection between the largest Mathieu group M_24 and the elliptic genus of K3. In particular, we find a complete list of twisted twining genera whose modular properties are controlled by a class in H^3(M_24, U(1)), as expected from general orbifold considerations.
We analyze holomorphic Jacobi forms of weight one with level. One such form plays an important role in umbral moonshine, leading to simplifications of the statements of the umbral moonshine conjectures. We prove that non-zero holomorphic Jacobi forms of weight one do not exist for many combinations of index and level, and use this to establish a characterization of the McKay--Thompson series of umbral moonshine in terms of Rademacher sums.
For any square-free integer $N$ such that the "moonshine group" $Γ_0(N)^+$ has genus zero, the Monstrous Moonshine Conjectures relate the Hauptmoduli of $Γ_0(N)^+$ to certain McKay-Thompson series associated to the representation theory of the Fischer-Griess monster group. In particular, the Hauptmoduli admits a $q$-expansion which has integer coefficients. In this article, we study the holomorphic function theory associated to higher genus moonshine groups $Γ_0(N)^+$. For all moonshine groups of genus up to and including three, we prove that the corresponding function field admits two generat…
We consider the situation in which a finite group acts on an infinite-dimensional graded module in such a way that the graded trace functions are weakly holomorphic modular forms. Under a mild hypothesis we completely describe the asymptotic module structure of the homogeneous subspaces. As a consequence we find that moonshine for a group gives rise to partial orderings on its irreducible representations. This serves as a first answer to a question posed by Griess. In particular, we show that our hypothesis holds for umbral moonshine and for automorphism groups of certain vertex operator algeb…
In Monstrous moonshine, genus 0 property and the notion of replicability are strongly connected. With regards to recent developments of moonshine, we investigate a higher genus generalization of replicability for a general automorphic form. Specifically, we extend the definitions of replicates and a Hecke operator to harmonic Maass functions on modular curves of higher genera to obtain number theoretic generalizations of important results in Monstrous moonshine. Furthermore, we show the utility of the extended notions in yielding uniform proofs for numerous arithmetic properties of Fourier coe…
Mathieu moonshine attaches a weak Jacobi form of weight zero and index one to each conjugacy class of the largest sporadic simple group of Mathieu. We introduce a modification of this assignment, whereby weak Jacobi forms are replaced by semi-holomorphic Maass-Jacobi forms of weight one and index two. We prove the convergence of some Maass-Jacobi Poincaré series of weight one, and then use these to characterize the semi-holomorphic Maass-Jacobi forms arising from the largest Mathieu group.
A second-quantized version of Mathieu moonshine leads to product formulae for functions that are potentially genus-two Siegel Modular Forms analogous to the Igusa Cusp Form. The modularity of these functions do not follow in an obvious manner. For some conjugacy classes, but not all, they match known modular forms. In this paper, we express the product formulae for all conjugacy classes of $M_{24}$ in terms of products of standard modular forms. This provides a new proof of their modularity.
Motivated by the appearance of penumbral moonshine, and by evidence that penumbral moonshine enjoys an extensive relationship to generalized monstrous moonshine via infinite products, we establish a general construction in this work which uses singular theta lifts and a concrete construction at the level of modules for a finite group to translate between moonshine in weight one-half and moonshine in weight zero. This construction serves as a foundation for a companion paper in which we explore the connection between penumbral Thompson moonshine and a special case of generalized monstrous moons…
The Mathieu twisted twining genera, i.e. the analogues of Norton's generalised Moonshine functions, are constructed for the elliptic genus of K3. It is shown that they satisfy the expected consistency conditions, and that their behaviour under modular transformations is controlled by a 3-cocycle in H^3(M_24,U(1)), just as for the case of holomorphic orbifolds. This suggests that a holomorphic VOA may be underlying Mathieu Moonshine.
Recently a conjecture has been proposed which attaches (mock) modular forms to the largest Mathieu group. This may be compared to monstrous moonshine, in which modular functions are attached to elements of the Monster group. One of the most remarkable aspects of monstrous moonshine is the following genus zero property: the modular functions turn out to be the generators for the function fields of their invariance groups. In particular, these invariance groups define genus zero quotients of the upper half plane. It is therefore natural to ask if there is an analogue of this property in the Math…
The classical theory of monstrous moonshine describes the unexpected connection between the representation theory of the monster group $M$, the largest of the simple sporadic groups, and certain modular functions, called Hauptmodln. In particular, the $n$-th Fourier coefficient of Klein's $j$-function is the dimension of the grade $n$ part of a special infinite dimensional representation $V$ of the monster group. More generally the coefficients of Hauptmoduln are graded traces $T_g$ of $g \in M$ acting on $V$. Similar phenomena have been shown to hold for the Matthieu group $M_{24}$, but inste…
Umbral moonshine describes an unexpected relation between 23 finite groups arising from lattice symmetries and special mock modular forms. It includes the Mathieu moonshine as a special case and can itself be viewed as an example of the more general moonshine phenomenon which connects finite groups and distinguished modular objects. In this paper we introduce the notion of generalised umbral moonshine, which includes the generalised Mathieu moonshine [Gaberdiel M.R., Persson D., Ronellenfitsch H., Volpato R., Commun. Number Theory Phys. 7 (2013), 145-223] as a special case, and provide support…
We propose a moonshine for the sporadic Mathieu group M_12 that relates its conjugacy classes to various modular forms and Borcherds Kac-Moody Lie superalgebras.
We use canonically-twisted modules for a certain super vertex operator algebra to construct the umbral moonshine module for the unique Niemeier lattice that coincides with its root sublattice. In particular, we give explicit expressions for the vector-valued mock modular forms attached to automorphisms of this lattice by umbral moonshine. We also characterize the vector-valued mock modular forms arising, in which four of Ramanujan's fifth order mock theta functions appear as components.
Ramanujan influenced many areas of mathematics, but his work on q-series, on the growth of coefficients of modular forms, and on mock modular forms stands out for its depth and breadth of applications. I will give a brief overview of how this part of Ramanujan's work has influenced physics with an emphasis on applications to string theory, counting of black hole states and moonshine. This paper contains the material from my presentation at the meeting celebrating the centenary of Ramanujan's election as FRS and adds some additional material on black hole entropy and the AdS/CFT correspondence.
With a jocund air, we present an observation on the first 24 coefficients of the modular invariant and of the modular discriminant. The observation is purely for the sake of entertainment and could be of some diversion to a mathematical audience.
Monstrous moonshine relates distinguished modular functions to the representation theory of the monster. The celebrated observations that 196884=1+196883 and 21493760=1+196883+21296876, etc., illustrate the case of the modular function j-744, whose coefficients turn out to be sums of the dimensions of the 194 irreducible representations of the monster. Such formulas are dictated by the structure of the graded monstrous moonshine modules. Recent works in moonshine suggest deep relations between number theory and physics. Number theoretic Kloosterman sums have reappeared in quantum gravity, and …
The D1-D5-KK-p system naturally provides an infinite dimensional module graded by the dyonic charges whose dimensions are counted by the Igusa cusp form, Phi_{10}(Z)$. We show that the Mathieu group, M_{24}, acts on this module by recovering the Siegel modular forms that count twisted dyons as a trace over this module. This is done by recovering Borcherds product formulae for these modular forms using the M_{24} action. This establishes the correspondence (`moonshine') proposed in arXiv:0907.1410 that relates conjugacy classes of M_{24} to Siegel modular forms. This also, in a sense that we ma…
We introduce a notion of Hecke-monicity for functions on certain moduli spaces associated to torsors of finite groups over elliptic curves, and show that it implies strong invariance properties under linear fractional transformations. Specifically, if a weakly Hecke-monic function has algebraic integer coefficients and a pole at infinity, then it is either a holomorphic genus-zero function invariant under a congruence group or of a certain degenerate type. As a special case, we prove the same conclusion for replicable functions of finite order, which were introduced by Conway and Norton in the…
We prove the existence of a module for the largest Mathieu group, whose trace functions are weight two quasimodular forms. Restricting to the subgroup fixing a point, we see that the integrality of these functions is equivalent to certain divisibility conditions on the number of $\mathbb{F}_p$ points on Jacobians of modular curves. Extending such expressions to arbitrary primes, we find trace functions for modules of cyclic groups of prime order with similar connections. Moreover, for cyclic groups, we give an explicit vertex operator algebra construction whose trace functions are given only i…
The Umbral Moonshine Conjectures assert that there are infinite-dimensional graded modules, for prescribed finite groups, whose McKay-Thompson series are certain distinguished mock modular forms. Gannon has proved this for the special case involving the largest sporadic simple Mathieu group. Here we establish the existence of the umbral moonshine modules in the remaining 22 cases.
We describe a relationship between the representation theory of the Thompson sporadic group and a weakly holomorphic modular form of weight one-half that appears in work of Borcherds and Zagier on Borcherds products and traces of singular moduli. We conjecture the existence of an infinite dimensional graded module for the Thompson group and provide evidence for our conjecture by constructing McKay--Thompson series for each conjugacy class of the Thompson group that coincide with weight one-half modular forms of higher level. We also observe a discriminant property in this moonshine for the Tho…
\textit{Weak moonshine} for a finite group $G$ is the phenomenon where an infinite dimensional graded $G$-module $$V_G=\bigoplus_{n\gg-\infty}V_G(n)$$ has the property that its trace functions, known as McKay-Thompson series, are modular functions. Recent work by DeHority, Gonzalez, Vafa, and Van Peski established that weak moonshine holds for every finite group. Since weak moonshine only relies on character tables, which are not isomorphism class invariants, non-isomorphic groups can have the same McKay-Thompson series. We address this problem by extending weak moonshine to arbitrary width $s…
We consider double scaled little string theory on $K3$. These theories are labelled by a positive integer $k \ge 2$ and an $ADE$ root lattice with Coxeter number $k$. We count BPS fundamental string states in the holographic dual of this theory using the superconformal field theory $K3 \times \left( \frac{SL(2,\mathbb{R})_k}{U(1)} \times \frac{SU(2)_k}{U(1)} \right) \big/ \mathbb{Z}_k$. We show that the BPS fundamental string states that are counted by the second helicity supertrace of this theory give rise to weight two mixed mock modular forms. We compute the helicity supertraces using two s…
We develop two applications of the Kronecker's limit formula associated to elliptic Eisenstein series: A factorization theorem for holomorphic modular forms, and a proof of Weil's reciprocity law. Several examples of the general factorization results are computed, specifically for certain moonshine groups, congruence subgroups, and, more generally, non-compact subgroups with one cusp. In particular, we explicitly compute the Kronecker limit function associated to certain elliptic points for a few small level moonshine groups.
Cheng constructed product expansions from twists of elliptic genera of symmetric powers of K3 surfaces that are related to M_24 moonshine. We study which of them are Siegel modular forms. If the predicted level is non-composite, they are modular, and their powers can be represented as products of rescaled Borcherds products.
This article is a short and elementary introduction to the monstrous moonshine aiming to be as accessible as possible. I first review the classification of finite simple groups out of which the monster naturally arises, and features of the latter that are needed in order to state the moonshine conjecture of Conway and Norton. Then I motivate modular functions and modular forms from the classification of complex tori, with the definitions of the J-invariant and its q-expansion as a goal. I eventually provide evidence for the monstrous moonshine correspondence, state the conjecture, and then pre…
In this paper we relate umbral moonshine to the Niemeier lattices: the 23 even unimodular positive-definite lattices of rank 24 with non-trivial root systems. To each Niemeier lattice we attach a finite group by considering a naturally defined quotient of the lattice automorphism group, and for each conjugacy class of each of these groups we identify a vector-valued mock modular form whose components coincide with mock theta functions of Ramanujan in many cases. This leads to the umbral moonshine conjecture, stating that an infinite-dimensional module is assigned to each of the Niemeier lattic…
We construct a self-dual integral form of the moonshine vertex operator algebra, and show that it has symmetries given by the Fischer-Griess monster simple group. The existence of this form resolves the last remaining open assumption in the proof of the modular moonshine conjecture by Borcherds and Ryba. As a corollary, we find that Griess's original 196884-dimensional representation of the monster admits a positive-definite self-dual integral form with monster symmetry.
Answering a question posed by Conway and Norton in their seminal 1979 paper on moonshine, we prove the existence of a graded infinite-dimensional module for the sporadic simple group of O'Nan, for which the McKay--Thompson series are weight $3/2$ modular forms. The coefficients of these series may be expressed in terms of class numbers, traces of singular moduli, and central critical values of quadratic twists of weight 2 modular $L$-functions. As a consequence, for primes $p$ dividing the order of the O'Nan group we obtain congruences between O'Nan group character values and class numbers, $p…
In recent literature, moonshine has been explored for some groups beyond the Monster, for example the sporadic O'Nan and Thompson groups. This collection of examples may suggest that moonshine is a rare phenomenon, but a fundamental and largely unexplored question is how general the correspondence is between modular forms and finite groups. For every finite group $G$, we give constructions of infinitely many graded infinite-dimensional $\mathbb{C}[G]$-modules where the McKay-Thompson series for a conjugacy class $[g]$ is a weakly holomorphic modular function properly on $Γ_0(\text{ord}(g))$. A…
The goal of this paper is to construct infinite dimensional Lie algebras using infinite product identities, and to use these Lie algebras to reduce the generalized moonshine conjecture to a pair of hypotheses about group actions on vertex algebras and Lie algebras. The Lie algebras that we construct conjecturally appear in an orbifold conformal field theory with symmetries given by the monster simple group. We introduce vector-valued modular functions attached to families of modular functions of different levels, and we prove infinite product identities for a distinguished class of automorphic…
In this note, we provide evidence for new (super) moonshines relating the Monster and the Baby monster to some weakly holomorphic weight 1/2 modular forms defined by Zagier in his work on traces of singular moduli. They are similar in spirit to the recently discovered Thompson moonshine.
In this paper, we compute the Fourier expansion of the Shintani lift of nearly holomorphic modular forms. As an application, we deduce modularity properties of generating series of cycle integrals of nearly holomorphic modular forms.
In this paper, we investigate cycle integrals of weakly holomorphic modular forms. We show that these integrals coincide with the cycle integrals of classical cusp forms. We use these results to define a Shintani lift from integral weight weakly holomorphic modular forms to half-integral weight holomorphic modular forms.
In order to considering the integrality of nearly holomorphic (vector-valued) Siegel modular forms, we introduce nearly Siegel modular forms and study their integrality. We show that the integrality of nearly Siegel modular forms in terms of their Fourier expansion implies the integrality of their CM values. Furthermore, we show that there exists a one-to-one correspondence between integral nearly Siegel modular forms and integral nearly holomorphic ones. By these results, the integrality of CM values holds for nearly holomorphic Siegel modular forms and for nearly overconvergent p-adic Siegel…
Let $Γ$ be the Fuchsian group of the first kind. For an even integer $m\ge 4$, we study $m/2$-holomorphic differentials in terms of space of (holomorphic) cuspidal modular forms $S_m(Γ)$. We also give in depth study of Wronskians of cuspidal modular forms and their divisors.
In this article, we study the nature of zeros of weakly holomorphic modular forms. In particular, we prove results about transcendental zeros of modular forms of higher levels and for certain Fricke groups which extend a work of Kohnen. Furthermore, we investigate the algebraic independence of values of weakly holomorphic modular forms.
We extend the relation between quasi-modular forms and modular forms to a wider class of functions. We then relate both forms to vector-valued modular forms with symmetric power representations, and prove a general structure theorem for these vector-valued forms.
We show that the values of a certain family of weakly holomorphic modular functions at points in the divisors of any meromorphic modular form with algebraic Fourier coefficients are algebraic. We use this to extend the classical result of Schneider by proving that zeros or poles of any non-zero meromorphic modular form with algebraic Fourier coefficients are either transcendental or imaginary quadratic irrational.
In this paper, we revisit an earlier conjecture by one of us that related conjugacy classes of $M_{12}$ to Jacobi forms of weight one and index zero. We construct Jacobi forms for all conjugacy classes of $M_{12}$ that are consistent with constraints from group theory as well as modularity. However, we obtain 1427 solutions that satisfy these constraints (to the order that we checked) and are unable to provide a unique Jacobi form. Nevertheless, as a consequence, we are able to provide a group theoretic proof of the evenness of the coefficients of all EOT Jacobi forms associated with conjugacy…
We define an analogue of the Bol operator on spaces of weakly holomorphic modular forms of half-integral weight. We establish its main properties and relation with other objects.
The twisted elliptic genera of a $K3$ surface associated with the conjugacy classes of the Mathieu group $M_{24}$ are known to be weak Jacobi forms of weight $0$. In 2010, Cheng constructed formal infinite products from the twisted elliptic genera and conjectured that they define Siegel modular forms of degree two. In this paper we prove that for each conjugacy class of level $N_g$ the associated product is a meromorphic Borcherds product on the lattice $U(N_g)\oplus U \oplus A_1$ in a strict sense. We also compute the divisors of these products and determine for which conjugacy classes the pr…
The Conway--Norton conjectures unexpectedly related the Monster with certain special modular functions (Hauptmoduls). Their proof by Borcherds et al was remarkable for demonstrating the rich mathematics implicit there. Unfortunately Moonshine remained almost as mysterious after the proof as before. In particular, a computer check - as opposed to a general conceptual argument - was used to verify the Monster functions equal the appropriate modular functions. This, the so-called `conceptual gap', was eventually filled; we review the solution here. We conclude by speculating on the shape of a new…
Inspired by prior work of Bruinier and Ono and Mertens and Rolen, we study class polynomials for non-holomorphic modular functions arising from modular forms of negative weight. In particular, we give general conditions for the irreducibility of class polynomials. This allows us to easily generate infintely many new class invariants.
We examine the Fourier coefficients of modular forms in a canonical basis for the spaces of weakly holomorphic modular forms of weights 4, 6, 8, 10, and 14, and show that these coefficients are often highly divisible by the primes 2, 3, and 5.
Zagier proved that the generating series for the traces of singular moduli is a \textit{weakly holomorphic} modular form of weight 3/2 on $Γ_0(4)$. Bruinier and Funke extended the results of Zagier to modular curves of arbitrary genus. Zagier also showed that the twisted traces of singular moduli are generated by a weakly holomorphic modular form of weight 3/2. In this paper, we study the extension of Zagier's result for the twisted traces of singular moduli to congruence subgroups $Γ_0(N)$. As an application, we study congruences for the twisted traces of singular moduli of weakly holomorphic…
We prove that the zeros of a family of extremal modular forms interlace, settling a question of Nozaki. Additionally, we show that the zeros of almost all forms in a basis for the space of weakly holomorphic modular forms of weight $k$ for $\SL_2(\mathbb{Z})$ interlace on most of the lower boundary of the fundamental domain.
Holomorphic almost modular forms are holomorphic functions of the complex upper half plane which can be approximated arbitrarily well (in a suitable sense) by modular forms of congruence subgroups of large index in $\SL(2,\ZZ)$. It is proved that such functions have a rotation-invariant limit distribution when the argument approaches the real axis. An example for a holomorphic almost modular form is the logarithm of $\prod_{n=1}^\infty (1-\exp(2\piın^2 z))$. The paper is motivated by the author's studies [J. Marklof, Int. Math. Res. Not. {\bf 39} (2003) 2131-2151] on the connection between alm…
In this article, we explicitly construct a canonical basis for the space of certain weakly holomorphic Drinfeld modular forms for $Γ_0(T)$ (resp., for $Γ_0^+(T)$) and compute the generating function satisfied by the basis elements. We also give an explicit expression for the action of the $Θ$-operator, which depends on the divisor of meromorphic Drinfeld modular forms.
Let $M_k^\sharp(N)$ be the space of weakly holomorphic modular forms for $Γ_0(N)$ that are holomorphic at all cusps except possibly at $\infty$. We study a canonical basis for $M_k^\sharp(2)$ and $M_k^\sharp(3)$ and prove that almost all modular forms in this basis have the property that the majority of their zeros in a fundamental domain lie on a lower boundary arc of the fundamental domain.
In this paper, we prove some divisibility results for the Fourier coefficients of reduced modular forms of sign vectors. More precisely, we generalize a divisibility result of Siegel on constant terms when the weight is non-positive, which is related to the weight of Borcherds lifts when the weight is zero. By considering Hecke operators for the spaces of weakly holomorphic modular forms with sign vectors, and obtain divisibility results in an "orthogonal" direction on reduced modular forms.