On the irreducible components of the singular locus of \(A_g\) (Q5938608)

Let \(A_g\) denote the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties (ppav) of dimension \(g\geq 3\). The singular locus \(\text{Sing} A_g\) of \(A_g\) consists of those polarized abelian varieties which admit an automorphism group different from \(\pm 1\). The aim of the paper is to describe the irreducible components of \(\text{Sing} A_g\). The analogous problem for the moduli space of smooth projective algebraic curves was studied by \textit{M. Cornalba} [Ann. Mat. Pura Appl., IV. Ser. 149, 135-151 (1987; Zbl 0649.14013)]. The first result is an explicit description of the local moduli space of triples \((X,\Theta,\rho)\) consisting of a ppav \((X,\Theta)\) and an automorphism \(\rho\) of prime order \(p\). If for such an automorphism \(\rho\) we denote by \(\rho_n\) its restriction to the \(n\)-division points \(X_n\), then the conjugation class of \(\rho_n\) determines the global deformation space of \((X, \Theta,\rho)\). In fact, if \(A_g(p,\rho_n)\) denotes the set of ppav's admitting an automorphism of order \(p\) acting on \(X_n\) with class \(\rho_n\), then the family of subsets \(A_g(p,\rho_n)\) is a family of irreducible algebraic subvarieties of \(A_g\) which cover the singular locus \(\text{Sing} A_g\). The dimension of these subvarieties is easily computed via the above mentioned result of local deformation theory. The second part of the paper is devoted to the investigation of possible inclusions \(A_g(p,\rho_n) \subset A_g(q, \sigma_n)\). Several results of this kind and many examples are given.