A characterization of certain Shimura curves in the moduli stack of abelian varieties (Q1767406)

Let \(f: X \to Y\) be a semistable family of complex abelian varieties over a curve \(Y\) of genus \(g\) that is smooth over the complement of a set of \(s\) points in \(Y\). If \(F^{1,0}\) denotes the nonflat \((1,0)\) part of the corresponding variation of Hodge structures and if \(\ell = \text{rank} (F^{1,0})\), the Arakelov inequality implies that \[ 2 \text{\,deg} (F^{1,0}) \leq \ell (2g -2 +s) . \] The author proves that equality is achieved if and only if the associated Higgs field is maximal and interprets this condition in specific cases. For \(s \neq 0\), the condition implies that the given family is isogenous to the \(\ell\)-fold product of a modular family of elliptic curves and a constant abelian variety. On the other hand, if \(s=0\) and if the flat part of the variation of Hodge structures is defined over \(\mathbb Q\), the family must be isogenous to the product of copies of a family \(h: Z \to Y\) and a constant abelian variety. In this case the family \(h\) is obtained from the corestriction of a quaternion algebra defined over a totally real number field and ratified over all infinite places except one.