Exceptional coverings and sums of 4 triangular numbers (Q1210421)

This paper is a continuation of two others by the authors [in The Grothendieck Festschrift, Vol. III, Prog. Math. 88, 437-480 (1990; Zbl 0726.14024); ``Variétés de Kritchever de solitons elliptiques'', in Proc. Indo-French Conf. Geometry, Bombay 1989)], which were devoted to the study of the structure of the solutions of the KdV equation called elliptic solitons. To a hyperelliptic curve \(C\) of genus \(g\), equipped with a double point \(p\) of the hyperelliptic involution and a divisor \(D\) of degree \(g-1\), is associated a meromorphic function \(u\) on the complex plane, which is a so-called potential with a finite number of instability zones, and from which the triple \((C,p,D)\) can be recovered (the Schrödinger equation with potential \(u\) on the plane has a family of eigenfunctions parametrized by \(C\) with poles at \(D)\). The function associated with the divisor \((g-1)p\) is called the source potential. This paper is concerned with the case where \(C\) is a ``tangential at \(p\)'' covering of an elliptic curve \(E\). Here ``tangential at \(p\)'' means that the images of \(C\) and \(E\) in Jac\(C\) by the morphisms defined by \(p\) are tangent at the origin. The potentials associated to such a covering ``live'' on \(E\) and are combinations of Weierstrass functions there. To each such tangential covering of an elliptic curve by a hyperelliptic one is associated naturally a four-tuple of (intersection) numbers. And some of these four-tuples determine (for each \(E)\) a unique such tangential hyperelliptic covering. These are the so-called exceptional coverings. The paper studies the above correspondence between ``exceptional'' four- tuples and combinations of Weierstrass functions, characterizing in particular those combinations which are reached by source potentials. The formulas describing this picture are full of triangular numbers, whence the title.