Towards the arithmetic degree of line bundles on abelian varieties (Q1265388)

Let \(\tau\) be in the upper half-plane and \(\alpha,\beta\in{\mathbb R}\). There exists a classical formula [cf. \textit{D. Mumford}, Tata lectures on theta I, Progress in Mathematics, Vol. 28, Birkhäuser (1983; Zbl 0509.14049)] \[ \int_0^1\int_0^1 \log\left|\vartheta \binom \alpha \beta (\tau,0)\right|^2 d\alpha d\beta = {1\over{24}}\log|\Delta(\tau)|^2, \] which involves the theta function with characteristics, \[ \vartheta \binom \alpha \beta (\tau,z) = \displaystyle\sum_{m\in{\mathbb Z}}e^{\pi i (m+\alpha^2)\tau+2\pi i(m+\alpha)(z+\beta)}, \] and the cusp form \(\Delta(\tau)=e^{2\pi i\tau}\displaystyle\prod_{n=1}^\infty (1-e^{2\pi i m\tau})^{24}\). In this paper the authors generalize this formula to polarized abelian varieties of dimension \(n\geq 1\). The generalization of the left hand side leads to the integral of the \(*\)-product of \((n+1)\) Green currents associated to global sections of an ample line bundle equipped with a translation invariant metric over the polarized abelian variety. Studying the (local) variation of integrals of this kind, the authors show that their integral equals the logarithm of the Petersson norm of a Siegel modular form described explicitly in terms of the given data. This result is interpreted as the evaluation of an archimedean height on a family of polarized abelian varieties. In the last section of the paper, they give explicit calculations by means of classical Riemann Theta functions for the cases of dimension \(n=1,2,3\).