A special integral basis for a plane model of the Drinfeld modular curve \(X_1(n)\bmod T\) (Q1293756)

Drinfeld modular curves play an important role in some questions of coding theory. In particular, curves of type \(X_1(n)\) with some \(n \in A = \mathbb F_q[T]\) have been used by \textit{Yu. I. Manin} and \textit{S. G. Vladut} [J. Sov. Math. 30, 2611-2643 (1985; Zbl 0629.94013)] to construct series of ``good'' codes with polynomial complexity. Their construction is based on the existence of a plane model \(P(X,Y) = 0\) of \(X_1(n)\) (reduced \(\bmod~\mathfrak p\), when \(\mathfrak p\) is the prime ideal \((T)\) generated by \(T\in A\), and \((n,T)=1\)), which is smooth in its ``affine'' part, but presents singularities at infinity. In order to make that construction work, an integral basis \({\mathcal B}\) for the integral closure of \(\overline{\mathbb F}_q[X]\) in \(\overline{\mathbb F}_q[X,Y]/P(X,Y)\) with ``low complexity'' must be found, briefly, \({\mathcal B}\) must be ``minimal'' or ``close to minimal'', cf. Definition 2.1. Minimality is expressed in small values of a certain numerical quantity \(\nu({\mathcal B})\) associated with \({\mathcal B}\). The main result of the paper is Theorem 4.5, which constructively gives a basis \({\mathcal B}\) which is ``close to minimal'' in that \(\nu({\mathcal B})\) is close to its possible minimum. At the end, this significantly sharpens the complexity estimates given by Manin and Vladut.