Degrees of strongly special subvarieties and the André-Oort conjecture (Q346743)

The André-Oort conjecture predicts that if \(\Sigma\) is a set of special points in a Shimura variety \(S\), then every irreducible component of the Zariski closure of \(\Sigma\) is a special subvariety. \textit{B. Klingler} and \textit{A. Yafaev} [Ann. Math. (2) 180, No. 3, 867--925 (2014; Zbl 1377.11073)] have proved the André-Oort conjecture assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis. Their proof used ergodic theory. For products of modular curves, a shorter and more geometric proof avoiding ergodic theory (but still assuming the general Riemann hypothesis) was given in [the author, Arch. Math. 98, No. 5, 433--440 (2012; Zbl 1333.11056)]. The methods of that paper are now extended to arbitrary Shimura varieties, thus providing a new proof that the generalized Riemann hypothesis implies the André-Oort conjecture. A key technical step in the proof is a lower bound for the degrees of strongly special subvarieties of \(S\).