Bounded equidistribution of special subvarieties in mixed Shimura varieties (Q2634866)

The paper under review studies the André-Oort conjecture for mixed Shimura varieties, which predicts that the Zariski closure of an arbitrary sequence of special subvarieties in a (mixed) Shimura variety should remain a finite union of special subvarieties. The author follows the works by \textit{B. Klingler} and \textit{A. Yafaev} [Ann. Math. (2) 180, No. 3, 867--925 (2014; Zbl 1377.11073)] and \textit{E. Ullmo} and \textit{A. Yafaev} [Ann. Math. (2) 180, No. 3, 823--865 (2014; Zbl 1328.11070)] for pure Shimura varieties assuming the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis (GRH in short). In the pure case, this approach consists of the following ingredients: Step 1. The equidistribution of \(\mathbf{T}\)-special subvarieties for pure Shimura varieties, established in [\textit{L. Clozel} and \textit{E. Ullmo}, Ann. Math. (2) 161, No. 3, 1571--1588 (2005; Zbl 1099.11031)] and [\textit{E. Ullmo} and \textit{A. Yafaev}, Ann. Math. (2) 180, No. 3, 823--865 (2014; Zbl 1328.11070)]; here \(\mathbf{T}\) is the common connected center of the Mumford-Tate group of the sequence of special subvarieties in question; Step 2. A lower bound for the intersection degree of Galois orbits of \(\mathbf{T}\)-special subvarieties, and a characterization of sequences of special subvarieties with bounded Galois orbits, assuming the GRH, proved in [loc. cit.]; Step 3. The ergodic-Galois alternative: showing that the Zariski closure of a sequence of special subvarieties can always be reached in replacing the original sequence by a sequence with bounded Galois orbits, assuming the GRH, completed in [loc. cit.]. Sections 2, 3, 4 of the paper under review provides a generalization of (Step 1) for general mixed Shimura varieties. The notion of bounded sequence of special subvarieties is introduced, which is modeled on the pure case in [loc. cit.]. Note that in an abelian variety \(A\) defined over a number field, a sequence of special subvarieties \(a_n+A_n\) is of bounded Galois orbits if and only if the torsion translations ``\(a_n+\)'' all come from a fixed finite set of torsion points. Using the explicit structure of mixed Shimura data recalled from \textit{R. Pink}'s thesis [Arithmetical compactification of mixed Shimura varieties. Universität Bonn (1990; Zbl 0748.14007)] and the prototype of Kuga varieties as abelian schemes over a pure Shimura variety (see e.g. the same author's work [Math. Z. 274, No. 3--4, 821--839 (2013; Zbl 1318.14026)]), the author considers \((\mathbf{T},w)\)-special subvarieties in a general mixed Shimura variety defined by a mixed Shimura datum of the form \((\mathbf{P},Y)=\mathbf{W}\rtimes(\mathbf{G},X)\), where {\parindent=0.7cm\begin{itemize}\item[--] \((\mathbf{G},X)\) is a pure Shimura datum and \(\mathbf{W}\) is the unipotent radical of \(\mathbf{P}\) over \(\mathbb{Q}\); \item[--] \(\mathbf{T}\) is a connected torus in \(\mathbf{G}\) and \(w\) is some element from \(\mathbf{W}(\mathbb{Q})\); \item[--] \((\mathbf{T},w)\)-special subvarieties are those associated to mixed Shimura subdatum of the form \(\mathbf{W}'\rtimes(w\mathbf{G}'w^{-1}, wX')\) with \((\mathbf{G}',X')\subset(\mathbf{G},X)\) a pure subdatum such that \(\mathbf{T}\) is the connected center of \(\mathbf{G}\); here \((w\mathbf{G}'w^{-1},wX')\) plays the role of torsion translation as in the case of abelian varieties. \end{itemize}} The equidistribution of \((\mathbf{T},w)\)-special subvarieties is an immediate consequence of the work [\textit{A. Eskin} et al., Geom. Funct. Anal. 7, No. 1, 48--80 (1997; Zbl 0872.22009)] on unipotents orbits over lattices spaces of Lie groups. Parallel to the approach in [\textit{L. Clozel} and \textit{E. Ullmo}, Ann. Math. (2) 161, No. 3, 1571--1588 (2005; Zbl 1099.11031)], the author starts with the equidistribution of canonical probability measures associated \((\mathbf{T},w)\)-special subdatum on a lattice space \(\Gamma\backslash\mathbf{P}^{\mathrm{der}}(\mathbb{R})^+\), and then passes to its analogue over a quotient \(\Gamma\backslash\mathbf{P}^{\mathrm{der}}(\mathbb{R})^+/K_\infty\) where \(K_\infty\) is a maximal compact subgroup of the Lie group \(\mathbf{P}^{\mathrm{der}}(\mathbb{R})^+\), and the quotient is a real submanifold of the ambient mixed Shimura variety \(M=\Gamma\backslash Y^+\) (choosing \(\Gamma\) to be a neat congruence subgroup). The construction of intermediate quotient submanifolds is well-behaved when passing to special subvarieties, and these submanifolds are Zariski dense in the respective special subvarieties. Hence for a fixed choice of \((\mathbf{T},w)\), the André-Oort conjecture for \((\mathbf{T},w)\)-special subvarieties holds due to the finer equidistribution of measures associated to \((\mathbf{T},w)\)-special subvarieties. The same result is true when one works with special subvarieties which are \((\mathbf{T},w)\)-special with \((\mathbf{T},w)\) coming from a fixed finite set of such pairs, which is a naive version of the notion of bounded sequence of special subvariety. One expects that this naive version should be canonical: such sequences of special subvarieties should be of bounded Galois orbits and vice versa, where the intersection degree are computed with respect to an ample line bundle on the ambient mixed Shimura variety. Section 5 and 6 of the paper provides partial results for (Step 2) in the mixed case. In the pure case the work [\textit{E. Ullmo} and \textit{A. Yafaev}, Ann. Math. (2) 180, No. 3, 823--865 (2014; Zbl 1328.11070)] has reduced most of the estimation to the cardinality of Galois orbits, and thus to a pure counting problem for the reciprocity map describing the Galois translation on the set of connected components of a Shimura subvariety. In the mixed case this cardinality should contain information from the unipotent translation \(w\in\mathbf{W}(\mathbb{Q})\). The author proves in Section 2 a variant of a result of Pink, which embeds a mixed Shimura variety, up to a finite quotient, into a product of mixed Shimura varieties of Siegel types times a pure Shimura variety. Here a mixed Shimura variety of Siegel type is {\parindent=0.7cm\begin{itemize}\item[--] either the universal abelian scheme over some Siegel modular variety \(\mathcal{A}\rightarrow\mathcal{A}_V\), associated to the datum \(\mathbf{V}\rtimes(\mathbf{GSp}_\mathbf{V},\mathcal{H}_\mathbf{V})\) given by a symplectic \(\mathbb{Q}\)-vector space \(\mathbf{V}\) \item[--] or the mixed Shimura variety associated \(\mathbf{W}\rtimes(\mathbf{GSp}_V,\mathcal{H}_V)\) where \(\mathbf{W}\) is the central extension of \(\mathbf{V}\) by \(\mathbb G_a\) using the symplectic form, which gives a \(\mathbb G_m\)-bundle over \(\mathcal{A}\). \end{itemize}} The contribution from the unipotent translation \(w\) is made explicit in terms of the torsion order of \(w\) in \(\Gamma_\mathbf{W}\backslash\mathbf{W}(\mathbb{Q})\) with \(\Gamma_\mathbf{W}\) the unipotent radical of \(\Gamma\), which is well-defined although this quotient is not a group but merely a pointed set with scaling by \(\mathbb{Z}\). Instead of treating the full generalization of (Step 2) for arbitrary special subvarieties, the author only considers in Section 5 the unipotent translation of pure Shimura subvarieties, and the intersection degree is computed against the pull-back of the automorphic line bundle from the pure base Shimura variety. In Section 6, the author considers test invariants for a special subvariety in a product of mixed Shimura varieties of Siegel types times a pure Shimura varieties. This test invariant is indirectly defined as the minimum of test invariants of maximal pure special subvarieties in the special subvariety of interest. It is expected that this test invariant should be computed directly as a lower bound to the intersection degree, which would justify the name ``bounded sequence'' of special subvarieties. One remarks that the o-minimality approach to the André-Oort conjecture for mixed Shimura varieties is completed by \textit{Z. Gao} [``Towards the Andre-Oort conjecture for mixed Shimura varieties: the Ax-Lindemann theorem and lower bounds for Galois orbits of special points'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1310.1302}], which proves the Ax-Lindemann property for the complex uniformization of mixed Shimura varieties and an lower bound for Galois orbits of special points, and thus establishes the conjecture for mixed Shimura varieties of abelian type (i.e. whose pure base Shimura varieties are of abelian type), using \textit{J. Tsimerman}'s proof for special subvarieties in the Siegel modular variety [``A proof of the André-Oort conjecture for \(A_g\)'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1506.01466}].