Strongly modular lattices with long shadow (Q558190)

For an integral lattice \(L\) in Euclidean space \(\mathbb R^n\), let \(S(L)=\{\frac12 v\in\mathbb R^n\mid \,v\cdot x \equiv x\cdot x \text{ mod }2\mathbb Z\) for all \(x\in L\}\) be the shadow of \(L\). The author classifies certain strongly modular lattices for which \(\min_0(S(L)) := \min\{v\cdot v\mid v\in S(L)\}\) attains the largest and second largest values possible. The results here generalize those obtained for unimodular lattices by \textit{N. D. Elkies} [Math. Res. Lett. 2, No. 3, 321--326 (1995; Zbl 0855.11032); Math. Res. Lett. 2, No. 5, 643--651 (1995; Zbl 0854.11021)]. To state the results more precisely, for positive integers \(N\), \(k\) and a nonnegative integer \(m\), let \[ M^{(N)}(m,k):=\begin{cases} \frac1N\left(k\frac{\sigma_1(N)}{4}-2m\right) &\text{if \(N\) is odd}\\ \frac1N\left(k\frac{\sigma_1(\frac{N}{2})}{2}-m\right) &\text{if \(N\) is even}, \end{cases} \] where \(\sigma_1\) denotes the sum of divisors function. The main result of this paper is that if \(L\) is a strongly \(N\)-modular lattice that is rationally equivalent to \(C^k_N\), where \(C_N:=\perp_{d| N}\sqrt{d}\mathbb Z\) and \(N\in\{1,2,3,5,6,7,11,14,15,23\}\), then \(\min_0(S(L)) = M^{(N)}(m,k)\) for some nonnegative integer \(m\). The lattices for which \(\min_0(S(L))\) takes the values \(M^{(N)}(0,k)\) and \(M^{(N)}(1,k)\) are classified.