The Picard group of the universal abelian variety and the Franchetta conjecture for abelian varieties (Q2335877)

Over the moduli stack $\mathcal{A}_{g,n}$, of principally polarized abelian varieties of dimension $g$ with symplectic principal level-$n$ structure, let $\mathcal{X}_{g,n}$ be the universal abelian variety. The main result of the article under review pertains to the structure of the quotient sheaf \[ \operatorname{Pic}(\mathcal{X}_{g,n}) / \operatorname{Pic}(\mathcal{A}_{g,n}). \] It states that if $g \geq 4$ and $n \geq 1$, then \[ \operatorname{Pic}(\mathcal{X}_{g,n}) / \operatorname{Pic}(\mathcal{A}_{g,n})= \begin{cases} \left( \mathbb{Z} / n \mathbb{Z} \right)^{2g} \oplus \mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{\mathcal{L}_{\Lambda}}] \text{ if }n\text{ is even} \\ \left( \mathbb{Z} / n \mathbb{Z} \right)^{2g} \oplus \mathbb{Z}[\mathcal{L}_{\Lambda} ] \text{ if }n\text{ is odd.} \end{cases} \] Here, $\sqrt{\mathcal{L}_{\Lambda}}$ is, up to torsion, a square-root of the rigidified canonical line bundle $\mathcal{L}_{\Lambda}$ and $(\mathbb{Z} / n \mathbb{Z})^{2g}$ is the group of rigidified $n$th-roots of line bundles. In a related direction, the authors study the quotient sheaf \[ \operatorname{Pic}(\mathcal{X}_g) / \operatorname{Pic}(\mathcal{A}_g) \] for $ \mathcal{X}_g \rightarrow \mathcal{A}_g$ the universal abelian variety over the moduli stack of principally polarized abelian varieties of dimension $g$. In this context, they prove that it may be described as \[ \operatorname{Pic}(\mathcal{X}_g) / \operatorname{Pic}(\mathcal{A}_g) = \mathbb{Z}[\mathcal{L}_{\Lambda}] . \] The authors' proof of their results builds on earlier work of \textit{A. Silverberg} [Invent. Math. 81, 71--106 (1985; Zbl 0576.14020)] and \textit{D. Edidin} and \textit{W. Graham} [Invent. Math. 131, No. 3, 595--644 (1998; Zbl 0940.14003)]. At the same time, the present work is motived by earlier work of \textit{E. Arbarello} and \textit{M. Cornalba} [Topology 26, 153--171 (1987; Zbl 0625.14014)], \textit{M. Mestrano} [Invent. Math. 87, 365--376 (1987; Zbl 0585.14011)] and \textit{A. Kouvidakis } [J. Differ. Geom. 34, No. 3, 839--850 (1991; Zbl 0780.14004)].