Let $\mathbb{F}_q$ be a finite field with $q$ elements and let $V$ be a vector space over $\mathbb{F}_q$ of dimension $n>0$. Let $Ω_V$ be the Drinfeld period domain over $\mathbb{F}_q$. This is an affine scheme of finite type over $\mathbb{F}_q$, and its base change to $\mathbb{F}_q(t)$ is the moduli space of Drinfeld $\mathbb{F}_q[t]$-modules with level $(t)$ structure and rank $n$. In this thesis, we give a new modular interpretation to Pink and Schieder's smooth compactification $B_V$ of $Ω_V$. Let $\hat V$ be the set $V\cup\{\infty\}$ for a new symbol $\infty$. We define the notion of a $V$-fern over an $\mathbb{F}_q$-scheme $S$, which consists of a stable $\hat V$-marked curve of genus $0$ over $S$ endowed with a certain action of the finite group $V\rtimes \mathbb{F}_q^\times$. Our main result is that the scheme $B_V$ represents the functor that associates an $\mathbb{F}_q$-scheme $S$ to the set of isomorphism classes of $V$-ferns over $S$. Thus $V$-ferns over $\mathbb{F}_q(t)$-schemes can be regarded as generalizations of Drinfeld $\mathbb{F}_q[t]$-modules with level $(t)$ structure and rank $n$. To prove this theorem, we construct an explicit universal $V$-fern over $B_V$. We then show that any $V$-fern over a scheme $S$ determines a unique morphism $S\to B_V$, depending only its isomorphism class, and that the $V$-fern is isomorphic to the pullback of the universal $V$-fern along this morphism. We also give several functorial constructions involving $V$-ferns, some of which are used to prove the main result. These constructions correspond to morphisms between various modular compactifications of Drinfeld period domains over $\mathbb{F}_q$. We describe these morphisms explicitly.
We give an abstract characterization of the Satake compactification of a general Drinfeld modular variety. We prove that it exists and is unique up to unique isomorphism, though we do not give an explicit stratification by Drinfeld modular varieties of smaller rank which is also expected. We construct a natural ample invertible sheaf on it, such that the global sections of its $k$-th power form the space of (algebraic) Drinfeld modular forms of weight $k$. We show how the Satake compactification and modular forms behave under all natural morphisms between Drinfeld modular varieties; in particu…
We construct a compactification of the moduli space of Drinfeld modules of rank $r$ and level $N$ as a moduli space of $A$-reciprocal maps. This is closely related to the Satake compactification, but not exactly the same. The construction involves some technical assumptions on $N$ that are satisfied for a cofinal set of ideals $N$. In the special case $A={\mathbb F}_q[t]$ and $N=(t^n)$ we obtain a presentation for the graded ideal of Drinfeld cusp forms of level $N$ and all weights and can deduce a dimension formula for the space of cusp forms of any weight. We expect the same results in gener…
In this paper we describe the compactification of the Drinfeld modular curve. This compactification is analogous to the compactification of the classical modular curve given by Katz and Mazur. We show how the Weil pairing on Drinfeld modules that we defined in earlier work gives rise to a map on the Drinfeld modular curve. We introduce the Tate-Drinfeld module and show how this describes the formal neighbourhood of the scheme of cusps of the Drinfeld modular curve.
We study a certain compactification of the Drinfeld period domain over a finite field which arises naturally in the context of Drinfeld moduli spaces. Its boundary is a disjoint union of period domains of smaller rank, but these are glued together in a way that is dual to how they are glued in the compactification by projective space. This compactification is normal and singular along all boundary strata of codimension $\ge2$. We study its geometry from various angles including the projective coordinate ring with its Hilbert function, the cohomology of twisting sheaves, the dualizing sheaf, an…
We study compactifications of Drinfeld half-spaces over a finite field. In particular, we construct a purely inseparable endomorphism of Drinfeld's half-space $Ω(V)$ over a finite field $k$ that does not extend to an endomorphism of the projective space $P (V)$. This should be compared with theorem of Rémy, Thuillier and Werner that every $k$-automorphism of $Ω(V)$ extends to a $k$-automorphism of $P (V)$. Our construction uses an inseparable analogue of the Cremona transformation. We also study foliations on Drinfeld's half-spaces. This leads to various examples of interesting varieties in po…
Drinfeld's relative compactification plays a basic role in the theory of automorphic sheaves, and its singularities encode representation-theoretic information in the form of intersection cohomology. We introduce a resolution of singularities consisting of stable maps from nodal deformations of the curve into twisted flag varieties. As an application, we prove that the twisted intersection cohomology sheaf on Drinfeld's compactification is universally locally acyclic over the moduli stack of $G$-bundles at points sufficiently antidominant relative to their defect.
Let $X$ be a smooth complete curve, $G$ be a reductive group and $P\subset G$ a parabolic. Following Drinfeld, one defines a compactification $\widetilde{\on{Bun}}_P$ of the moduli stack of $P$-bundles on $X$. The present paper is concerned with the explicit description of the Intersection Cohomology sheaf of $\widetilde{\on{Bun}}_P$. The description is given in terms of the combinatorics of the Langlands dual Lie algebra $\check{\mathfrak g}$.
When considered as a Deligne-Lusztig variety, the Drinfeld half space $Ω_V$ over a finite field $k$ has a compactification whose boundary divisor is normal crossing and which can be obtained by successively blowing-up projective space along linear subspaces. Pink and Schieder (2014) have introduced a new compactification of $Ω_V$ whose strata of the boundary are glued together in a way dual to the way they are for the tautological compactification by projective space. We show that by applying an analogous sequence of blow-ups to this new compactification we arrive at the compactification by De…
Let G be a reductive group and let Bun_G denote the moduli stack of G-bundles on a smooth projective curve. We begin the study of the singularities of a canonical compactification of Bun_G due to V. Drinfeld (unpublished), which we refer to as the Drinfeld-Lafforgue-Vinberg compactification. For G=GL_n certain smooth open substacks of this compactification have already appeared in the work of Drinfeld and of L. Lafforgue on the Langlands correspondence for function fields. The Drinfeld-Lafforgue-Vinberg compactification is however already singular for G=SL_2; questions about its singularities …
In this article we study the perverse sheaf on Drinfeld's compactification obtained by applying the geometric Jacquet functor (alias nearby cycles) to a nondegenerate Whittaker sheaf. Namely, we describe its restrictions along the defect stratification in terms of the Langlands dual Lie algebra, in particular showing that this nearby cycles sheaf is tilting. We also describe the subquotients of the monodromy filtration using the Picard-Lefschetz oscillators introduced by S. Schieder, including a proof that the subquotients are semisimple without reference to any theory of weights. This argumen…
We use Drinfeld's relative compactifications and the Tannakian viewpoint on principal bundles to construct the Harder-Narasimhan stratification of the moduli stack Bun_G of G-bundles on an algebraic curve in arbitrary characteristic, generalizing the stratification for G=GL_n due to Harder and Narasimhan to the case of an arbitrary reductive group G. To establish the stratification on the set-theoretic level, we exploit a Tannakian interpretation of the Bruhat decomposition and give a new and purely geometric proof of the existence and uniqueness of the canonical reduction in arbitrary charact…
Let $C$ be a smooth projective curve of genus 0. Let $\FF$ be the variety of complete flags in an $n$-dimensional vector space $V$. Given an $(n-1)$-tuple $α$ of positive integers one can consider the space $\MMα$ of algebraic maps of degree $α$ from $C$ to $\FF$. This space has drawn much attention recently in connection with Quantum Cohomology. The space $\MMα$ is smooth but not compact. The problem of compactification of $\MMα$ proved very important. One compactification $\MMLα$ (the space of {\em quasiflags}), was constructed in \cite{L}. However, historically the first and most economical…
This is the second of a series of articles providing a foundation for the theory of Drinfeld modular forms of arbitrary rank. In the present part, we compare the analytic theory with the algebraic one that was begun in a paper of the third author. For any arithmetic congruence subgroup and any integral weight we establish an isomorphism between the space of analytic modular forms with the space of algebraic modular forms defined in terms of the Satake compactification. From this we deduce the important result that this space is finite dimensional.
We construct a compactification of the Bruhat-Tits building associated to the group PGL(V) which can be identified with the space of homothety classes of seminorms on V endowed with the topology of pointwise convergence. Then we define a continuous map from the projective space to this compactification which extends the reduction map from Drinfeld's p-adic symmetric domain to the building.
We prove that all points of a toroidal compactification lying over 0-dimensional cusps are rationally equivalent in the integral Chow group for most classical modular varieties (Siegel, Hilbert, orthogonal, Hermitian, quaternionic). This gives a generalization, and even strengthening, of the Manin-Drinfeld theorem in higher dimension from the viewpoint of algebraic cycles. The same result no longer holds for Picard modular varieties, but for them we prove that the difference of any two "special" boundary points, which are dense in the boundary, is torsion.
This paper is a sequel to [Ga1]. We study the semi-infinite category on the Ran version of the affine Grassmannian, and study a particular object in it that we call the semi-infinite intersection cohomology sheaf. Unlike the situation of [Ga1], this version of the semi-infinite intersection IC sheaf is defined as the middle of extension of the constant (more precisely, dualizing) sheaf on the basic stratum, in a certain t-structure. We give several explicit description and characterizations of our semi-infinite intersection IC sheaf: we describe its !- and *- stalks; we present it explicitly a…
Let G be a split connected reductive group over a finite field F_q, and N its maximal unipotent subgroup. V. Drinfeld has introduced a remarkable partial compactification of the moduli stack of N-bundles on a smooth projective curve X over F_q. In this paper we study Drinfeld's moduli space and a certain category of perverse sheaves on it. The definition of this category is motivated by the study of the Whittaker functions on the group G(K), where K=F_q((t)). We prove that our category is semi-simple, and that irreducible objects of this category are "clean", i.e., they are extenstions by 0 of…
Let $C$ be a smooth projective curve of genus 0. Let $\CB$ be the variety of complete flags in an $n$-dimensional vector space $V$. Given an $(n-1)$-tuple $α\in\BN[I]$ of positive integers one can consider the space $\CQ_α$ of algebraic maps of degree $α$ from $C$ to $\CB$. This space admits some remarkable compactifications $\CQ^D_α$ (Quasimaps), $\CQ^L_α$ (Quasiflags), $\CQ^K_α$ (Stable Maps) of $\CQ_α$ constructed by Drinfeld, Laumon and Kontsevich respectively. It has been proved that the natural map $π: \CQ^L_α\to \CQ^D_α$ is a small resolution of singularities. The aim of the present not…
As we explain, when a positive integer $n$ is not squarefree, even over $\mathbb{C}$ the moduli stack that parametrizes generalized elliptic curves equipped with an ample cyclic subgroup of order $n$ does not agree at the cusps with the $Γ_0(n)$-level modular stack $\mathscr{X}_0(n)$ defined by Deligne and Rapoport via normalization. Following a suggestion of Deligne, we present a refined moduli stack of ample cyclic subgroups of order $n$ that does recover $\mathscr{X}_0(n)$ over $\mathbb{Z}$ for all $n$. The resulting modular description enables us to extend the regularity theorem of Katz an…
Let $C$ be a smooth projective curve of genus 0. Let $B$ be the variety of complete flags in an $n$-dimensional vector space $V$. Given an $(n-1)$-tuple $α\in N[I]$ of positive integers one can consider the space $Q_α$ of algebraic maps of degree $α$ from $C$ to $B$. This space admits some remarkable compactifications $Q^D_α$ (Quasimaps), $Q^L_α$ (Quasiflags) constructed by Drinfeld and Laumon respectively. In [Kuznetsov] it was proved that the natural map $π: Q^L_α\to Q^D_α$ is a small resolution of singularities. The aim of the present note is to study the singular support of the Goresky-Mac…
