A ring of elliptic modular forms (Q1203550)

In a series of important papers \textit{J. I. Igusa} [Am. J. Math. 88, 221- 236 (1966; Zbl 0146.317); ibid. 86, 392-412 (1964; Zbl 0133.333)] developed a method to study the ring of Siegel modular forms of degree \(n\). For every \(n\) there exist finitely many classical thetanullwerte which are modular forms on a certain congruence group \(\Gamma[4,8]\) (called the Igusa group). Igusa dealt with the question whether all modular forms with respect to this group are generated by these thetanullwerte. In the cases \(n=1\), \(n=2\) he was able to show that this is the case. In his proof Igusa used algebraic-geometric methods (theory of abelian varieties). In this paper we give a very elementary proof in the case \(n=1\). It is based on an analysis of the zeros of the thetanullwerte. In our approach it is important to go down to the principal congruence group \(\Gamma[2]\). \(\Gamma[2]/\pm\Gamma[4,8]\) is a finite abelian group, isomorphic to \(\mathbb{Z}/4\mathbb{Z}\times\mathbb{Z}/4\mathbb{Z}\). An important step in the proof of the main theorem is the decomposition of the space \([\Gamma[4,8],r/2,v_ \vartheta^ r]\) with respect to the 16 characters of this group. The case \(n=1\) was treated in great detail by \textit{W. Karcher} in his Diplomarbeit (Heidelberg 1991). The method used here can also be transferred to the case \(n=2\).