Special cycles on toroidal compactifications of orthogonal Shimura varieties (Q2170988)

The modularity of generating series of special cycles plays a central role in the Kudla program and has applications to intersection and height pairings [\textit{S. Kudla}, Math. Sci. Res. Inst. Publ. 49, 243--270 (2004; Zbl 1073.11042)]. Known cases include Zhang's result on the modularity of generating functions of special cycles on orthogonal Shimura varieties [\textit{W. Zhang}, Modularity of generating functions of special cycles on Shimura varieties. Columbia University (Ph.D. Thesis) (2009)], which in codimension one is a theorem of \textit{R. E. Borcherds} [Duke Math. J. 97, No. 2, 219--233 (1999; Zbl 0967.11022)], generalizing Gross-Kohnen-Zagier's theorem [\textit{B. H. Gross} and \textit{D. B. Zagier}, Invent. Math. 84, 225--320 (1986; Zbl 0608.14019)] for modular curves and Hirzebruch-Zagier's theorem [\textit{F. Hirzebruch} and \textit{D. Zagier}, Invent. Math. 36, 57--113 (1976; Zbl 0332.14009)]) for Hilbert modular surfaces. \textit{S. S. Kudla} and \textit{J. J. Millson} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 71, 121--172 (1990; Zbl 0722.11026)] proved an analogue for the cohomology classes of special cycles on locally symmetric spaces associated with orthogonal groups. A recent work by Howard and Madapusi [\textit{B. Weisfeiler}, ``Kudla's modularity conjecture on integral models of orthogonal Shimura varieties'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2211.05108}] proved this modularity for integral models of orthogonal Shimura Varieties. The present paper by Bruinier and Zemel proves a modularity result of the generating series of special divisors on toroidal compactifications of orthogonal Shimura varieties arising from even lattices of signature \((n,2).\) Given an even lattice \(L\) of signature \((n,2)\), let \(X_L\) denote the connected complex Shimura variety associated to the stable special orthogonal group of \(L.\) In the context of a toroidal compactification \(X^{\mathrm{tor}}_L\) of \(X_L,\) Borcherds' modularity result does not extend naively to \(X^{\mathrm{tor}}_L\) via taking closures of the special divisors on \(X_L.\) Instead, one has to take into consideration certain boundary divisors with appropriate multiplicities. For every \(\mu\) in the discriminant group of \(L\) and every positive number \(m\in \frac{\mu^2}{2}+\mathbb{Z}\), there is a special divisor \(Z(m, \mu)\) on the canonical minimal compactification of \(X_L\). The behavior of a certain automorphic Green function \(\Phi_{m,\mu}^L\) on \(X_L\) with logarithmic singularity along \(Z(m,\mu)\) is analyzed. For the two kinds of boundary components on \(X^{\mathrm{tor}}_L\) arising respectively from primitive rank \(1\) and rank \(2\) isotrpoic sublattices of \(L\), the authors show that \(\Phi_{m,\mu}^L\) has logarithmic growth along certain boudary divisors and determine their corresponding multiplicities respectively. A special divisor on \(X^{\mathrm{tor}}_L\) is then defined as the sum of \(Z(m,\mu)\) and the boundary components of \(X^{\mathrm{tor}}_L\) with their corresponding multiplicities. Combining the results on \(\Phi_{m,\mu}^L\) with Borcherds' modularity criterion and the compatibility between Borcherds product and the Green functions, the main theorem demonstrates that the generating series of these special divisors is a modular form of weight \(1+n/2\) and the Weil representation associated with \(L\) with coefficients in \(\text{CH}^1(X_L^{\mathrm{tor}})\otimes\mathbb{R}.\)