Lectures on Siegel modular forms given in Nordfjordeid. Besides a survey on Siegel modular forms it presents the joint work with Carel Faber on vector-valued Siegel modular forms of genus 2 and it gives evidence for a conjecture of Harder on congruences between g=1 and g=2 forms.
We use vanishing results for sheaf cohomology on Siegel modular varieties to study two lifting problems: (a) When can Siegel modular forms (mod p) be lifted to characteristic zero? This uses and extends previous results for cusp forms by Stroh and Lan-Suh. (b) When is the restriction of Siegel modular forms to the boundary of the moduli space a surjective map? We investigate this question in arbitrary characteristic, generalising analytic results of Weissauer and Arakawa.
This paper gives a simple method for constructing vector-valued Siegel modular forms from scalar-valued ones. The method is efficient in producing the siblings of Delta, the smallest weight cusp forms that appear in low degrees. It also shows the strong relations between these modular forms of different genera. We illustrate this by a number of examples.
In this paper, we discuss the theory of the Siegel modular variety in the aspects of arithmetic and geometry. This article covers the theory of Siegel modular forms, the Hecke theory, a lifting of elliptic cusp forms, geometric properties of the Siegel modular variety, (hypothetical) motives attached to Siegel modular forms and a cohomology of the Siegel modular variety.
We construct one parameter families of overconvergent Siegel-Hilbert modular forms. In particular, for any classical Siegel-Hilbert modular eigenform one can find a rigid analytic disc centered at this point, on which an infinite family of classical points with varying weights accumulates at the center.
We prove multiplicity one for vector valued holomorphic Siegel modular forms of weights greater or equal to 3 and the full Siegel modular group and give a trace formula for the action of the Hecke operators T(p) in the regular cases.
We extend Igusa's description of the relation between invariants of binary sextics and Siegel modular forms of degree two to a relation between covariants and vector-valued Siegel modular forms of degree two. We show how this relation can be used to effectively calculate the Fourier expansions of Siegel modular forms of degree two.
We study vector-valued Siegel modular forms of genus 2 and level 2. We describe the structure of certain modules of vector-valued modular forms over rings of scalar-valued modular forms.
In this paper we will describe all vector-valued Siegel modular forms of degree 2 and weight ${\rm Sym}^6({\rm St}) \otimes \det^{k}({\rm St})$ with $k$ odd. These vector-valued forms constitute a module over the ring of classical Siegel modular forms of degree 2 and even weight and this module turns out to be free. In order to find generators, we generalize certain Rankin-Cohen differential operators on triples of classical Siegel modular forms that were first considered by Ibukiyama and we find a Rankin-Cohen bracket on vector-valued Siegel modular forms.
This is a survey article about Siegel modular varieties over the complex numbers. It is written mostly from the point of view of moduli of abelian varieties, especially surfaces. We cover compactification of Siegel modular varieties; classification of the compactified varieties by Kodaira dimension, etc.; moduli of abelian surfaces and especially applications of the lifting of Jacobi forms to modular forms; projective models of some special Siegel modular 3-folds; non-principally polarized abelian surfaces; and constructing degenerating families of abelian varieties.
This is a survey based on the construction of Siegel modular forms of degree 2 and 3 using invariant theory in joint work with Fabien Cléry and Carel Faber.
We prove that there exist exactly eight Siegel modular forms with respect to the congruence subgroups of Hecke type of the paramodular groups of genus two vanishing precisely along the diagonal of the Siegel upper half-plane. This is a solution of a question formulated during the conference "Black holes, Black Rings and Modular Forms" (ENS, Paris, August 2007). These modular forms generalize the classical Igusa form and the forms constructed by Gritsenko and Nikulin in 1998.
In this paper we extend some results of Norman and Oort and of de Jong, and give an explicit description of the geometry of the Siegel modular threefold with paramodular level structure. We also discuss advantages and restrictions of three standard methods for studying moduli spaces of abelian varieties.
Hecke eigenvalues of classical modular forms often encode a wealth of arithmetic data. The Satake $p$-parameters of a Siegel modular form play a role analogous to the one played by Hecke eigenvalues in the characterization of classical modular forms. In this paper we present an algorithm by which we can compute the Satake $p$-parameters of a Siegel modular form $F$ if we are given the Hecke eigenvalues of $F$ with respect to the generators of the local Hecke algebra. We compute explicit examples and relate our computations to the Ramanujan-Petersson Conjecture.
Let p be an odd prime and g an integer greater or equal to 2. We prove that a finite slope Siegel cuspidal eigenform of genus g can be p-adically deformed over the g-dimensional weight space. The proof of this result relies on the construction of a family of sheaves of locally analytic overconvergent modular forms.
In a letter to Tate, Serre proves that the systems of Hecke eigenvalues given by modular forms (mod p) are the same as the ones given by locally constant functions on an adelic double coset space constructed from the endomorphism algebra of a supersingular elliptic curve. We generalize this result to Siegel modular forms (mod p), proving that the systems of Hecke eigenvalues obtained from them are the same as the ones given by algebraic modular forms (mod p) on a quaternionic unitary group, as defined by Gross. The correspondence is obtained by restricting to the superspecial locus of the modu…
In this paper we present an algorithm for computing Hecke eigensystems of Hilbert-Siegel cusp forms over real quadratic fields of narrow class number one. We give some illustrative examples using the quadratic field $\Q(\sqrt{5})$. In those examples, we identify Hilbert-Siegel eigenforms that are possible lifts from Hilbert eigenforms.
We prove that the ring of Siegel modular forms of weight divisible by g+n+1 is isomorphic to the ring of (log) pluricanonical forms on the n-fold Kuga family of abelian varieties and its certain compactifications, for every arithmetic group for a symplectic form of rank 2g>2. We also give applications to the Kodaira dimension of the Kuga variety. In most cases, the Kuga variety has canonical singularities.
In a letter to Tate (published in Israel J. Math. in 1996), J.-P. Serre proves that the systems of Hecke eigenvalues given by modular forms (mod p) are the same as the ones given by locally constant functions on an adelic double coset space constructed from the endomorphism algebra of a supersingular elliptic curve. We generalize this result to Siegel modular forms, proving that the systems of Hecke eigenvalues given by Siegel modular forms (mod p) are the same as the ones given by algebraic modular forms (mod p) on a quaternionic unitary group, as defined by Gross in Israel J. Math. in 1999. …
We develop two structure theorems for vector valued Siegel modular forms for Igusa's subgroup Γ_2[2,4], the multiplier system induced by the theta constants and the representation Sym^2. In the proof, we identify some of these modular forms with rational tensors with easily handleable poles on P^3\C. It follows that the observed modules of modular forms are generated by the Rankin-Cohen brackets of the four theta series of the second kind.
In this article we prove several level lowering results for cuspidal automorphic representations occurring in the cohomology of the Siegel modular threefold with paramodular level structure by adapting a method of Ribet in his proof of the Serre's epsilon conjecture. The proof is purely geometric and relies on the description of the supersingular locus of certain quaternionic unitary Shimura variety and an arithmetic level raising result on this Shimura variety. The heart of the proof is a comparison of the dimension of the space of vanishing cycles on the paramodular Siegel modular threefold …
We formulate a conjecture that describes the vector-valued Siegel modular forms of degree 2 and level 2 of weight Sym^j det^2 and provide some evidence for it. We construct such modular forms of weight (j,2) via covariants of binary sextics and calculate their Fourier expansions illustrating the effectivity of the approach via covariants. Two appendices contain related results of Chenevier; in particular a proof of the fact that every modular form of degree 2 and level 2 and weight (j,1) vanishes.
It is a classical fact that the elliptic modular functions satisfies an algebraic differential equation of order 3, and none of lower order. We show how this generalizes to Siegel modular functions of arbitrary degree. The key idea is that the partial differential equations they satisfy are governed by Gauss--Manin connections, whose monodromy groups are well-known. Modular theta functions provide a concrete interpretation of our result, and we study their differential properties in detail in the case of degree 2.
In this paper we investigate the (classical) weights of mod $p$ Siegel modular forms of degree 2 toward studying Serre's conjecture for $GSp_4$. We first construct various theta operators on the space of such forms a la Katz and define the theta cycles for the specific theta operators. Secondly we study the partial Hasse invariants on each Ekedahl-Oort strata and their local behaviors. This enable us to obtain a kind of weight reduction theorem for mod $p$ Siegel modular forms of degree 2 without increasing level.
We prove a vanishing theorem for one forms on the moduli stack of principally polarized abelian varieties of genus g>1 with level structure N over fields of characteristic p different from two. This is used to compute the Picard groups of these stacks. As an application we obtain results one congruences between integral Siegel modular forms.
We show how one can use the representation theory of ternary quartics to construct all vector-valued Siegel modular forms and Teichmüller modular forms of degree 3. The relation between the order of vanishing of a concomitant on the locus of double conics and the order of vanishing of the corresponding modular form on the hyperelliptic locus plays an important role. We also determine the connection between Teichmüller cusp forms on \overline{M}_g and the middle cohomology of symplectic local systems on M_g. In genus 3, we make this explicit in a large number of cases.
We give an explicit conjectural formula for the motivic Euler characteristic of an arbitrary symplectic local system on the moduli space A_3 of principally polarized abelian threefolds. The main term of the formula is a conjectural motive of Siegel modular forms of a certain type; the remaining terms admit a surprisingly simple description in terms of the motivic Euler characteristics for lower genera. The conjecture is based on extensive counts of curves of genus three and abelian threefolds over finite fields. It provides a lot of new information about vector-valued Siegel modular forms of d…
Let $\mathcal Q_D$ be the set of moduli points on Siegel's modular threefold whose corresponding principally polarized abelian surfaces have quaternionic multiplication by a maximal order $\mathcal O$ in an indefinite quaternion algebra of discriminant $D$ over $\mathbb Q$ such that the Rosati involution coincides with a positive involution of the form $α\mapstoμ^{-1}\overlineαμ$ on $\mathcal O$ for some $μ\in\mathcal O$ with $μ^2+D=0$. In this paper, we first give a formula for the number of irreducible components in $\mathcal Q_D$, strengthening an earlier result of Rotger. Then for each irr…
We show that the systems of Hecke eigenvalues occurring in the spaces of Siegel modular forms (mod p) of fixed dimension g, fixed level N, and varying weight, are the same as the systems occurring in the spaces of Siegel cusp forms with the same parameters and varying weight. In particular, in the case g=1, this says that the Hecke eigensystems (mod p) coming from classical modular forms are the same as those coming from cusp forms. The proof uses restriction to the superspecial locus. We also give a comparison of cusp forms on the Satake compactification versus the toroidal compactifications …
For $g=8,12,16$ and $24$, there is a nonzero alternating $g$-multilinear form on the ${\rm Leech}$ lattice, unique up to a scalar, which is invariant by the orthogonal group of ${\rm Leech}$. The harmonic Siegel theta series built from these alternating forms are Siegel modular cuspforms of weight $13$ for ${\rm Sp}_{2g}(\mathbb{Z})$. We prove that they are nonzero eigenforms, determine one of their Fourier coefficients, and give informations about their standard ${\rm L}$-functions. These forms are interesting since, by a recent work of the authors, they are the only nonzero Siegel modular fo…
We study moduli spaces of abelian varieties in positive characteristic, more specifically the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties on the one hand, and the analogous space with Iwahori type level structure, on the other hand. We investigate the Ekedahl-Oort stratification on the former, the Kottwitz-Rapoport stratification on the latter, and their relationship. In this way, we obtain structural results about the supersingular locus in the case of Iwahori level structure, for instance a formula for its dimension in case $g$ is even.
The object of this article is to construct certain classes of arithmetically significant, holomorphic Siegel cusp forms F of genus 2, which are neither of Saito-Kurokawa type, in which case the degree 4 spinor L-function L(s, F) is divisible by an abelian L-function, nor of Yoshida type, in which case L(s,F) is a product of L-series of a pair of elliptic cusp forms. Two key examples are the forms F defined by the symmetric cube of a non-CM elliptic curve E over the rationals, and those defined by anticyclotomic twists (of even non-zero weight) of the base change of such an E to an imaginary qu…
The Satake compactification of the moduli space of principally polarized abelian surfaces with a level two structure has a degree 8 endomorphism. The aim of this paper is to show that this result can be extended to other modular threefolds. The main tools are Siegel modular forms and Satake compactifications of arithmetic quotients of the Siegel upper-half space. Indeed, the construction of the degree 8 endomorphism on suitable modular threefolds is done via an isomorphism of graded rings of modular forms. By studying the action of the Fricke involution one gets a further extension of the prev…
We study over rings of scalar valued Siegel modular forms. modules of vector valued modular forms of degree two. For the two simplest representations, standard and Sym^2, appears rather natural consider the cases of the group $Γ[4,8] $ and $Γ[2,4].$ In these case we give the complete structure of the modules . The main tools are Theta functions and their derivatives evaluated at $z=0$
We study the cone of moving divisors on the moduli space ${\mathcal A}_g$ of principally polarized abelian varieties. Partly motivated by the generalized Rankin-Cohen bracket, we construct a non-linear holomorphic differential operator that sends Siegel modular forms to Siegel modular forms, and we apply it to produce new modular forms. Our construction recovers the known divisors of minimal moving slope on ${\mathcal A}_g$ for $g\leq 4$, and gives an explicit upper bound for the moving slope of ${\mathcal A}_5$ and a conjectural upper bound for the moving slope of ${\mathcal A}_6$.
We study the coherent cohomology of automorphic sheaves corresponding to Siegel modular forms $f$ of low weight on ${\rm GSp}(4)$ Shimura varieties. Inspired by the work of Prasanna--Venkatesh on singular cohomology of locally symmetric spaces, we propose a conjecture that explains all the contributions of a Hecke eigensystem to coherent cohomology in terms of the action of a motivic cohomology group. Under some technical conditions, we prove that our conjecture is equivalent to Beilinson's conjecture for the adjoint $L$-function of $f$. We also prove some unconditional results in special case…
We study the cohomology of certain local systems on moduli spaces of principally polarized abelian surfaces with a level 2 structure. The trace of Frobenius on the alternating sum of the étale cohomology groups of these local systems can be calculated by counting the number of pointed curves of genus 2 with a prescribed number of Weierstrass points over the given finite field. This cohomology is intimately related to vector-valued Siegel modular forms. The corresponding scheme in level 1 was carried out in [FvdG]. Here we extend this to level 2 where new phenomena appear. We determine the cont…
We use covariants of binary sextics to describe the structure of modules of scalar-valued or vector-valued Siegel modular forms of degree 2 with character, over the ring of scalar-valued Siegel modular forms of even weight. For a modular form defined by a covariant we express the order of vanishing along the locus of products of elliptic curves in terms of the covariant.
The goal of the present paper is two-fold. First, we present a classification of algebraic K3 surfaces polarized by the lattice H+E_8+E_7. Key ingredients for this classification are: a normal form for these lattice polarized K3 surfaces, a coarse moduli space and an explicit description of the inverse period map in terms of Siegel modular forms. Second, we give explicit formulas for a Hodge correspondence that relates these K3 surfaces to principally polarized abelian surfaces. The Hodge correspondence in question underlies a geometric two-isogeny of K3 surfaces.
In this paper we prove two results concerning the classification of Siegel modular threefolds. Let A_{1,d}(n) be the moduli space of abelian surfaces with a (1,d)-polarization and a full level-n structure and let A_{1,d}^{lev}(n) be the space where one has fixed an additional canonical level structure. We prove that A_{1,d}(n) is of general type if (d,n)=1 and n ist at least 4. This is the best possible result which one can prove for all d simultaneously. Let p be an odd prime and assume that (p,n)=1. Then we prove that the Voronoi compactification of A_{1,p}^{lev}(n) is smooth and has ample c…
We study the hyperbolicity of compactifications of quotients of bounded symmetric domains by arithmetic groups. We prove that, up to an étale cover, they are Kobayashi hyperbolic modulo the boundary. Applying our techniques to Siegel modular varieties, we improve some former results of Nadel on the non-existence of certain level structures on abelian varieties over complex function fields.
We consider the moduli space $A_{pol}(n)$ of (non-principally) polarised abelian varieties of genus $g\geq3$ with coprime polarisation and full level-$n$ structure. Based upon the analysis of the Tits building in math/0405321, we give an explicit lower bound on $n$ that is sufficient for the compactified moduli space to be of general type if one further explicit condition is satisfied.
Let A be the moduli space of (1,p)-polarised abelian surfaces with a level structure, for p an odd prime. Let X be a desingularisation of any algebraic compactification of A. Then X is simply-connected.
The finite symplectic group Sp(2g) over the field of two elements has a natural representation on the vector space of Siegel modular forms of given weight for the principal congruence subgroup of level two. In this paper we decompose this representation, for various (small) values of the genus and the level, into irreducible representations. As a consequence we obtain uniqueness results for certain modular forms related to the superstring measure, a better understanding of certain modular forms in genus three studied by D'Hoker and Phong as well as a new construction of Miyawaki's cusp form of…
We give a geometric derivation of Schottky's equation in genus four for the period matrices of Riemann surfaces among all period matrices. The equation arises naturally from the singularity theory of the Gauss map on the theta divisor, and thus generalizes for any genus $g \ge 4$ to a certain ideal of Siegel modular forms vanishing on period matrices of Riemann surfaces. This ideal is generated by modular forms associated to the invariants of cubic forms in $g - 1$ variables which vanish on the Fermat cubic.