Cohomology of \(\mathrm{Sp}_ 4(\mathbb Z)\) and related groups and spaces (Q1080961)

The integral symplectic group \(\mathrm{Sp}_ 4(\mathbb Z)\) acts in a natural way on the Siegel upper half space \(H_ 2\) of degree two; this action may be used to study the geometry of arithmetic quotients \(\Gamma \setminus H_ 2\) (or its various compactifications) attached to arithmetic subgroups \(\Gamma\) of \(\mathrm{Sp}_ 4(\mathbb Z)\) and to compute its cohomology groups. By a careful analysis of the boundary of the Igusa compactification \(M_ 2\) of the quotient \(\Gamma (2)\setminus H_ 2\) where \(\Gamma\) (2) denotes the full congruence subgroup of level two the authors obtain results on the cohomology of \(M_ 2\) via the usual long exact cohomology sequence. In particular, these enable them to describe the cohomology spaces \(H^*(\Gamma (2), \mathbb C)\) as representation spaces of \(\mathrm{Sp}_ 4(\mathbb Z)/2 \mathbb Z\). In turn, this allows the authors to extract complete information on the rank of the cohomology groups of \(\mathrm{Sp}_ 4(\mathbb Z)\) with coefficients in a field of characteristic not equal to 2,3 or 5. This work is partly based on previous results of \textit{G. van der Geer} [Math. Ann. 260, 317--350 (1982; Zbl 0473.14017)], and the authors [Contemp. Math. 36, 433--488 (1985; Zbl 0568.14020)]. The methods are similar to the ones used by the first author and \textit{R. H. Szczarba} [Invent. Math. 33, 15--53 (1976; Zbl 0332.18015)], though there are some new algebraic-geometric features. For a description of the 'cohomology at infinity' of an arbitrary \(\Gamma \subset \mathrm{Sp}_ 4(\mathbb Z)\) (i.e. that part of the cohomology of the arithmetic quotient \(\Gamma \setminus H_ 2\) which restricts non-trivially to the cohomology of the boundary of its Borel-Serre compactification) and the relation of \(H*(\Gamma \setminus H_ 2,\mathbb C)\) with the theory of automorphic forms see the reviewer [Compos. Math. 58, 233--258 (1986; Zbl 0596.10029)].