Jacobians among Abel threefolds: a formula of Klein and a question of Serre (Q2275697)

Let \(A_3\) be the moduli stack of principally polarized abelian schemes \((A,a)\) of relative dimension \(3\). Let \(k\) be a subfield of \(\mathbb{C}\) and suppose that \((A,a)\in A_3\otimes k\) is indecomposable over \(\bar{k}\). The main aim of the paper is to show that \((A,a)\) is isomorphic over \(k\) to a polarized Jacobian if and only if \(\chi_{18}(A,a)\) is a square over \(k\), where \(\chi_{18}\) is a Siegel modular form of genus \(3\) defined, up to a multiplicative constant, as the product of the \(36\) Thetanullwerte with even characteristics. This answers a question of J. P. Serre. Suppose that \((A,a)\) is isomorphic over \(k\) to \((\text{Jac}\,C,j)\), for some curve \(C/k\) of genus \(3\), where \(j\) is the canonical polarization. By taking the inverse image under the Torelli morphism \(t: C\mapsto (\text{Jac}\,C,j)\), one gets an element \(t^*\chi_{18}\) in the algebra of Teichmüller modular forms over \(k\), which turns out to be a square, according to \textit{T. Ichikawa} [Am. J. Math. 117, No. 4, 1057--1061 (1995; Zbl 0856.11024)]. The result is deduced from this fact by analyzing the action of quadratic twists on geometric Siegel modular forms. The second part of the paper uses a natural isomorphism between the algebra of invariants on the space of ternary quadratic forms with non-zero discriminant and the algebra of Teichmüller modular forms on the space of non-hyperelliptic curves of genus \(3\). Under this isomorphism, the restriction of the form \(t^*\chi_{18}\) to the non-hyperelliptic locus can be interpreted as an invariant, and this provides a simple proof of a formula of Klein which asserts that \(\chi_{18}(\text{Jac}\,C,j)\) is the square of the discriminant of \(C\).