Some years ago, Borcherds described in [Bo1] two methods for constructing modular forms on modular varieties related to the orthogonal group $Ø(2,n)$. They are the so called Borcherds' additive and multiplicative lifting. The multiplicative lifting has been used by Borcherds himself and other authors to construct modular forms with known vanishing locus and interesting properties. The additive lifting has been used to construct explicit maps from some modular varieties $Ø(2,n)$. In this paper we try a more systematic treatment in certain level 2 cases giving connections with Kondo's works
We show that the ring of modular forms with characters for the even unimodular lattice of signature (2,10) is generated by forms of weights 4, 10, 12, 16, 18, 22, 24, 28, 30, 36, 42, and 252 with one relation of weight 504. The proof is based on the comparison of the orbifold quotient of the symmetric domain with the root stack of the coarse moduli space.
We show that the ring of modular forms with characters for the even unimodular lattice of signature (2,18) is obtained from the invariant ring of $\mathrm{Sym}(\mathrm{Sym}^8(V) \oplus \mathrm{Sym}^{12}(V))$ with respect to the action of $\mathrm{SL}(V)$ by adding a Borcherds product of weight 132 with one relation of weight 264, where $V$ is a 2-dimensional $\mathbb{C}$-vector space. The proof is based on the study of the moduli space of elliptic K3 surfaces with a section.
We prove that the groups PSL(r,q^d) can be realized F_q(T)-regularly as Galois groups over the purely transcendental field F_q(T)(t_1,...,t_{r-1}) if r is even and r/2 is coprime to q^d-1. The method is to use twisted moduli schemes of Drinfeld modules (a la Shih). If one has sufficient control over modular forms, it can be made into an algorithm to find explicit equations. We do this for PSL(2,q^2) using Drinfeld modular forms.
We characterize the irreducible polynomials that occur as a characteristic polynomial of an automorphism of an even unimodular lattice of given signature, generalizing a theorem of Gross and McMullen. As part of the proof, we give a general criterion in terms of Witt groups for a bilinear form equipped with an action of a group G over a discretely valued field to contain a unimodular G-stable lattice.
We give an explicit formula to express the weight of $2$-reflective modular forms. We prove that there is no $2$-reflective lattice of signature $(2,n)$ when $n\geq 15$ and $n\neq 19$ except the even unimodular lattices of signature $(2,18)$ and $(2,26)$. As applications, we give a simple proof of Looijenga's theorem that the lattice $2U\oplus 2E_8(-1)\oplus\langle -2n\rangle$ is not $2$-reflective if $n>1$. We also classify reflective modular forms on lattices of large rank and the modular forms with the simplest reflective divisors.
It is well known that, fixed an even, unimodular, positive definite quadratic form, one can construct a modular form in each genus; this form is called the theta series associated to the quadratic form. Varying the quadratic form, one obtains the ring of stable modular forms. We show that the differences of theta series associated to specific pairs of quadratic forms vanish on the locus of hyperelliptic Jacobians in each genus. In our examples, the quadratic forms have rank 24, 32 and 48. The proof relies on a geometric result about the boundary of the Satake compactification of the hyperellip…
Let L be the even unimodular lattice of signature (2,10), In the paper [FS] we considered the subgroup O(L)^+ of index two in the orthogonal group. It acts biholomorphically on a ten dimensional tube domain H_{10}. We found a 715 dimensional space of modular forms with respect to the principal congruence subgroup of level two O^+(L)[2]. It defines an everywhere regular birational embedding of the related modular variety into the 714 dimensional projective space. In this paper, we prove that this space of orthogonal modular forms is related to a space of theta series. The main tool is a modular…
A modular form for an even lattice L of signature (2,n) is said to be 2-reflective if its zero divisor is set-theoretically contained in the Heegner divisor defined by the (-2)-vectors in L. We prove that there are only finitely many even lattices with n>6 which admit 2-reflective modular forms. In particular, there is no such lattice in n>25 except the even unimodular lattice of signature (2,26). This proves a conjecture of Gritsenko and Nikulin in the range n>6.
Vector-valued Siegel modular forms are the natural generalization of the classical elliptic modular forms as seen by studying the cohomology of the universal abelian variety. We show that for g>=4, a new class of vector-valued modular forms, defined on the Teichmuller space, naturally appears from the Mumford forms, a question directly related to the Schottky problem. In this framework we show that the discriminant of the quadric associated to the complex curves of genus 4 is proportional to the square root of the products of Thetanullwerte χ_{68}, which is a proof of the recently rediscovered…
We prove that there are only finitely many even lattices L of signature (2,n) with n>14 such that the modular variety defined by the stable orthogonal group of L is not of general type.
We prove that up to scaling there are only finitely many integral lattices L of signature (2,n) with n>20 or n=17 such that the modular variety defined by the orthogonal group of L is not of general type. In particular, when n>107, every modular variety defined by an arithmetic group for a rational quadratic form of signature (2,n) is of general type. We also obtain similar finiteness in n>8 for the stable orthogonal groups. As a byproduct we derive finiteness of lattices admitting reflective modular form of bounded vanishing order, which proves a conjecture of Gritsenko and Nikulin.
We introduce a holomorphic torsion invariant of log-Enriques surfaces of index two with cyclic quotient singularities of type $\frac{1}{4}(1,1)$. The moduli space of such log-Enriques surfaces with $k$ singular points is a modular variety of orthogonal type %of dimension $10-k$ associated with a unimodular lattice of signature $(2,10-k)$. We prove that the invariant, viewed as a function on the modular variety, is given by the Petersson norm of an explicit Borcherds product. We note that this torsion invariant is essentially the BCOV invariant in the complex dimension $2$. As a consequence, th…
A strongly reflective modular form with respect to an orthogonal group of signature (2,n) determines a Lorentzian Kac--Moody algebra. We find a new geometric application of such modular forms: we prove that if the weight is larger than n then the corresponding modular variety is uniruled. We also construct new reflective modular forms and thus provide new examples of uniruled moduli spaces of lattice polarised K3 surfaces. Finally we prove that the moduli space of Kummer surfaces associated to (1,21)-polarised abelian surfaces is uniruled.
We study the degree of the special cubic fourfolds in the Hilbert scheme of cubic fourfolds via a computation of the generating series of Heegner divisors of even lattice of signature (2, 20).
Based on the work of Borcherds we construct on the moduli space of K3 surfaces with B-field an automorphic form exp_{4,20} which vanishes on the totally geodesic subspaces orthogonal to -2 vectors of the even, unimodular lattice of signature (4,20). We give an explicit formula of the regularized determinants of the Laplacians of Calabi Yau metrics on K3 Surfaces, following suggestions by R. Borcherds. The holomorphic part of the regularized determinants will be the higher dimensional analogue of Dedekind Eta function. We give explicit formulas for the number of non singular rational curves wit…
The geometric objects of study in this paper are K3 surfaces which admit a polarization by the unique even unimodular lattice of signature (1,17). A standard Hodge-theoretic observation about this special class of K3 surfaces is that their polarized Hodge structures are identical with the polarized Hodge structures of abelian surfaces that are cartesian products of elliptic curves. Earlier work of the first two authors gives an explicit normal form and construction of the moduli space for these surfaces. In the present work, this normal form is used to derive Picard-Fuchs differential equation…
We prove that for any even lattice L of signature (2,n), the modular variety defined by the orthogonal group of the lattice L+mE_8 is of general type when m is sufficiently large.
We apply the homological mirror symmetry for elliptic curves to the study of indefinite theta series. We prove that every such series corresponding to a quadratic form of signature (1,1) can be expressed in terms of theta series associated with split quadratic forms and the usual theta series. We also show that indefinite theta series corresponding to univalued Massey products between line bundles on elliptic curve are modular.
We consider the Kudla-Millson lift from elliptic modular forms of weight (p+q)/2 to closed q-forms on locally symmetric spaces corresponding to the orthogonal group O(p,q). We study the L^2-norm of the lift following the Rallis inner product formula. We compute the contribution at the Archimedian place. For locally symmetric spaces associated to even unimodular lattices, we obtain an explicit formula for the L^2-norm of the lift, which often implies that the lift is injective. For O(p,2) we discuss how such injectivity results imply the surjectivity of the Borcherds lift.
Around 2000 Kudla presented conjectures about deep relations between arithmetic intersection theory, Eisenstein series and their derivatives, and special values of Rankin $L-$series. The aim of this text is to work out the details of an old unpublished draft on the second author's attempt to prove these conjectures for the case of the product of two modular curves. In part one we proved that the generating series of certain modified arithmetic special cycles is as predicted by Kudla's conjectures a modular form with values in the first arithmetic Chow group. Here we pair this generating series…
We form generating series of special divisors, valued in the Chow group and in the arithmetic Chow group, on the compactified integral model of a Shimura variety associated to a unitary group of signature (n-1,1), and prove their modularity. The main ingredient of the proof is the calculation of the vertical components appearing in the divisor of a Borcherds product on the integral model.
In this paper we study algebras of modular forms on unitary groups of signature $(n,1)$. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for an algebra of unitary modular forms to be free in terms of the modular Jacobian. As a corollary we obtain a criterion that guarantees in many cases that, if $L$ is an even lattice with complex multiplication and the ring of modular forms for its orthogonal group is a polynomial algebra, then the ring of modular forms for its unitary group is also a polynomial algebra. We prove that a number of rings of unitary modular forms are freely generated by applying t…
An even lattice $M$ of signature $(n,2)$ is called $2$-reflective if there is a non-constant modular form for the orthogonal group of $M$ which vanishes only on quadratic divisors orthogonal to $2$-roots of $M$. In [Amer. J. Math. 2017] Shouhei Ma proved that there are only finitely many $2$-reflective lattices of signature $(n,2)$ with $n\geq 7$. In this paper we extend the finiteness result of Ma to $n\geq 5$ and show that there are exactly forty-two $2$-reflective lattices of signature $(n,2)$ with $n\geq 8$.
Let $q$ be a unimodular quadratic form over a field $K$. Pfister's famous local--global principle asserts that $q$ represents a torsion class in the Witt group of $K$ if and only if it has signature $0$, and that in this case, the order of Witt class of $q$ is a power of $2$. We give two analogues of this result to systems of quadratic forms, the second of which applying only to nonsingular pairs. We also prove a counterpart of Pfister's theorem for finite-dimensional $K$-algebras with involution, generalizing a result of Lewis and Unger.
We study special cycles on a Shimura variety of orthogonal type over a totally real field of degree $d$ associated with a quadratic form in $n+2$ variables whose signature is $(n,2)$ at $e$ real places and $(n+2,0)$ at the remaining $d-e$ real places for $1\leq e <d$. Recently, these cycles were constructed by Kudla and Rosu-Yott and they proved that the generating series of special cycles in the cohomology group is a Hilbert-Siegel modular form of half integral weight. We prove that, assuming the Beilinson-Bloch conjecture on the injectivity of the higher Abel-Jacobi map, the generating serie…
