Hodge groups of certain superelliptic Jacobians (Q2275701)

Let \(n\) be an integer greater than or equal to 4. Let \(p\) be a prime that does not divide \(n\) and let \(q=p^r\). Let \(K\subset \mathbb{C}\) be a subfield which contains a primitive \(q\)-th root of unity \(\zeta_q\) and let \(f\in K[x]\) be an irreducible polynomial of degree \(n\) without multiple roots. Let \(\text{Gal}(f)\) denote the Galois group of \(f\) over \(K\). Let \(C_{f,q}\) denote the superelliptic curve \(y^q=f(x)\) and let \(J(C_{f,q})\) be its Jacobian variety. In this paper the authors investigate the structure of the Hodge group \(\text{Hdg}J(C_{f,q})\) and obtain the following main result: Assume that \(\text{Gal}(f)\) is either \(\mathbb{S}_n\) or \(\mathbb{A}_n\) and that it is \(\mathbb{S}_n\) if \(n=4\). Suppose that \(n>q\) and one of the following three conditions holds: (A) \(q<n<2q\); (B) \(p\) is odd and \(n\not \equiv 1 \bmod q\); (C) \(p=2, n\not \equiv 1 \bmod q\) and \(n\not \equiv q-1 \bmod 2q\). Then \(\text{Hdg}J(C_{f,q})=\text{U}(H_1(J_{f,q},\mathbb{Q}),\phi_q)\), the unitary group of \(\phi_q\), where \(\phi_q\) denotes the nondegenerate \(\mathbb{Q}(\zeta_q)\)-sesquilinear Hermitian form on \(H_1(J_{f,q},\mathbb{Q})\) defined as in [\textit{K. Ribet}, Am. J. Math. 105, 523-538 (1983;Zbl 0586.14003)].