On the 0-dimensional irreducible components of the singular locus of \(\mathcal A_g\) (Q1777331)

Let \({\mathcal A}_g\) denote the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties (ppav's). In [J. Algebra 240, 230--250 (2001; Zbl 0981.14020)] the authors proved the existence of subvarieties \({\mathcal A}_g(p,\sigma_n)\) of \({\mathcal A}_g\), parametrizing triples \((X,\sigma,\alpha)\) consisting of a ppav \(X\), a non-trivial automorphism \(\sigma\) of \(X\) of prime order \(p\) and the conjugation class a of the representation of \(\alpha\) on the \(n\)-division points of \(X\) for some \(n\geq 3\). An abelian variety \(X\) is called extremal if it is contained in some \({\mathcal A}_g(p,\sigma_n)\) of dimension \(0\). In this case necessarily \(p= 2g+ 1\) and \(X\) is an abelian variety with CM-type \(C\). The group \(\mathbb{F}^*_p\) acts by multiplication of the set of CM-types. Let \(H_C\) denote the isotropy group of \(C\) under this action. The main result of the paper is the following theorem: Let \(X\) be an extremal ppav and \(\sigma\) an automorphism of order \(2g+ 1\) of \(X\). Assume that the analytic representation of \(\sigma\) has \(C\) as its eigenvalues. Then \(X\) is an isolated point in \({\mathcal A}_g\) if and only if \(H_C\) is trivial. This is applied to classify the extremal ppav's of dimension 5 and to determine the isolated singular points of \({\mathcal A}_5\).