Transcendence of Hecke operators in the big Hecke algebra (Q2510815)

The paper under review proves an important transcendence theorem for Fourier coefficients of slope zero families of Hilbert modular forms, also known as \textit{Hida families} after the fundamental work of the author on this subject. To state the main results of this paper, let \(F\) be a totally real number field, \(p\) a prime number and \(\mathfrak N\) a prime ideal of the ring of integers of \(F\), prime to \(p\). Let \(\mathbf{h}\) be the ordinary big \(p\)-adic Hida-Hecke algebra acting on Hilbert modular forms over \(F\) of tame level \(\mathfrak N\) and \(\mathrm{Spec}(\mathbb I)\) and irreducible component of \(\mathrm{Spec}(\mathbf{h})\). For an arithmetic prime \(P\in\mathrm{Spec}(\mathbb I)\), write \(\mathbf{f}_P\) for the normalized eigenform corresponding to \(P\), and let \(a(\mathfrak{l},\mathbf{f}_P)\) be the eigenvalue of the Hecke operator at the prime ideal \(\mathfrak{l}\) of \(F\). The asssignement \(P\mapsto a(\mathfrak l,\mathbf{f}_P)\) gives rise to a \(p\)-adic analytic function on \(\mathrm{Spf}(\mathbb I)\), denoted \(a(\mathfrak l)\). We say that \(\mathbb I\) is a \textit{CM-family} if there are arithmetic points \(P\in \mathrm{Spec}(\mathbb I)\) corresponding to classical theta-series of the norm form of a CM-quadratic extension of \(F\). Finally, denote \(K:=\mathbb Q(\mu_{p^\infty})\). The main result of the paper asserts that \(\mathbb I\) is a non-CM-component if and only if there is a set of primes \(\Xi\) of \(F\) with Dirichlet density equal to 1 and such that, for any infinite set of arithmetic points \(\mathcal A\) in \(\mathrm{Spec}(\mathbb I)\) of a fixed weight \(k\geq 2\), and each \(\mathfrak l\in\Xi\), we have \[ \limsup_{P\in\mathcal A}[K(a(\mathfrak l,\mathbf{f}_P)):K]=\infty. \] If \(\mathbb I\) is a CM-component, then \([K(a(\mathfrak l,\mathbf{f}_P)):K]\) is bounded independently of \(P\) and \(\mathfrak l\). The author discusses the following corollary of the above result, for which we assume for simplicity that \(F\) is at most tamely ramified over \(\mathbb Q\) (the complete result is proved in the paper). Let \(\mathcal T=\mathrm{Res}_{{\mathfrak o}/{\mathbb Z}}(\mathbb G_m)\), where \(\mathfrak o\) is the ring of integers of a finite extension \(L\) of \(F\) inside \(\mathbb C_p\), and fix a character \(\nu\in X^*(\mathcal T)\) with \(\nu\neq 1\). Let \(Q\) be the fraction field of \(\mathbb Z_p[\![T]\!]\) and fix an algebraic closure \(\bar Q\) of \(Q\). Define the integral domain \(R_\nu\) as the sub-algebra of \(\Lambda=\mathbb Z_p[\![T]\!]\) generated over \(\mathbb Z_{(p)}\) by \((1+T)^{\log_p(\nu(\alpha)/\log_p(1+p)}\) for all \(\alpha\in \mathfrak o_{(p)}^\times\), \(\alpha\neq 0\), where \(\log_p\) is Iwasawa's branch of the \(p\)-adic logarithm. As a corollary of the main result, the author proves that if \(\mathbb I\) is a non CM-component, then for a density 1 subset \(\Xi\) of primes of \(F\), the subring \(Q(R_\nu)[a(\mathfrak l)]\) of \(\bar Q\) for all \(\mathfrak l\) in \(\Xi\) has transcendence degree 1 over \(R_\nu\). The author finally discusses a conjectural characteristic \(p\) version of the last corollary and its important application to the vanishing of Iwasawa \(\mu\)-invariant of the Deligne-Ribet \(p\)-adic \(L\)-function.