Geometric non-vanishing

DOI10.1007/S00222-004-0386-ZMaRDI QIDQ706147zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 2 February 2005

Published in Inventiones Mathematicae (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0305321

Special values of automorphic (L)-series, periods of automorphic forms, cohomology, modular symbols (11F67) Galois representations (11F80) (L)-functions of varieties over global fields; Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture (11G40)

Abstract: We consider

L

-functions attached to representations of the Galois group of the function field of a curve over a finite field. Under mild tameness hypotheses, we prove non-vanishing results for twists of these

L

-functions by characters of order prime to the characteristic of the ground field and by certain representations with solvable image. We also allow local restrictions on the twisting representation at finitely many places. Our methods are geometric, and include the Riemann-Roch theorem, the cohomological interpretation of

L

-functions, and some monodromy calculations of Katz. As an application, we prove a result which allows one to deduce the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer for non-isotrivial elliptic curves over function fields whose

L

-function vanishes to order at most 1 from a suitable Gross-Zagier formula.

Review text

The author employs geometric methods to prove that certain motivic \(L\)-functions over function fields do not vanish at certain points. Because of the Langlands dictionary as established by L.~Lafforgue, the results can be carried over to automorphic \(L\)-functions. Let \(C\) be a smooth, proper, absolutely connected curve over a finite extension \(k\) of \(\mathbb F_p\) (\(p\) prime), \(q=\text{Card}\,k\), \(F=k(C)\) the function field of \(C\), \(\bar F\) a separable algebraic closure of \(F\), \(k_n\subset\bar F\) the degree-\(n\) extension of \(k\), \(k_\infty\) their union, \(F_n\) the compositum \(Fk_n\), and \(F_\infty=Fk_\infty\). Let \(\rho\) be an \(l\)-adic (\(l\) prime \(\neq p\)) representation of \(\text{Gal}(\bar F| F)\) which is unramified away from finitely many places of \(F\) and absolutely irreducible when restricted to \(\text{Gal}(\bar F| F_\infty)\). For any finite extension \(K\) of \(F\) in \(\bar F\), write \(L(\rho, K, s)\) for the \(L\)-function of \(\rho| _{\text{Gal}(\bar F| K)}\). Fix an integer \(d>0\) prime to \(p\) and a complex number \(a\in{\mathbb C}\). A weak version of the author's main result says -- under the assumption that \(d| q-1\) and that \(\rho\) is everywhere at worst tamely ramified -- that there are infinitely many integers \(n\) for which there exists an \(f\in F_n^\times\) such that the extension \(F_n(f^{1/d})\) has degree \(d\) over \(F_n\) and such that the ratio \(L(\rho,F_n(f^{1/d}),s)/L(\rho,F_n,s)\) does not vanish at \(s=a\) (Theorem~1.1). The author explores various strengthenings of this result. First, under the hypothesis ``\(d| q-1\), which allows one to write the \(L\)-ratio in question as a product of twists \(L(\rho\otimes\chi,F_n,s)\) by characters of the order-\(d\) cyclic group \(\text{Gal}(F_n(f^{1/d})| F_n)\), the result amounts to saying that these twists do not vanish at \(s=a\). In the main theorem, this hypothesis is dropped, leading the author to consider twists by representations of \(\text{Gal}(\bar F| F_n)\) of degree \(>1\). The second strengthening involves imposing local conditions on the extension \(F_n(f^{1/d})| F_n\) at finitely many places, such as its splitting, inertness, or ramification behaviour. The third strengthening gives the result for all sufficiently large~\(n\), not just for infinitely many~\(n\). It may happen that under certain conditions the \(L\)-ratio is forced to vanish at \(s=a\)~; the author shows that then the order of vanishing is~\(1\). The paper was motivated by the desire to reduce the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for those elliptic curves \(E\) over \(F\) which do not come over \(\bar F\) from \(k_\infty\) and whose \(L\)-function has at most a simple zero at \(s=1\) to the Gross-Zagier situation of a simple zero by passing to a suitable finite extension \(K\) of \(F\) (cf.~Theorem~1.2).

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