Abelian covers of \(\mathbb{P}^1\) of \(p\)-ordinary Ekedahl-Oort type (Q7025969)

Let \(G\) be a finite abelian group of exponent \(e\), and let \(\mathcal O\) be the ring of integers of the \(e\)th cyclotomic field. Consider the Hurwitz space of \(G\)-covers of the curve \(\mathbb P^1\), which is a smooth, proper Deligne-Mumford stack defined over \(\mathrm{Spec}(\mathcal O[1/e])\). Each irreducible component of the Hurwitz space is characterized by a monodromy datum \((G,\gamma, a)\) where \(\gamma\) is the number of branched points and \( a=(a_1,\dots, a_\gamma)\) is a \(\gamma\)-tuple of elements in \(G\), each of whose entry is the local monodromy at the \(i\)th branched point. The irreducible component is denoted by \(\mathcal M=\mathcal M(G,\gamma, a)\). Over \(\mathbb C\), the image of \(\mathcal M\) under the Torelli map is contained in a subvariety of \(\mathcal A_g\), the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties of dimension \(g\), and it extends to a morphism \(\mathcal M \to \mathrm{Sh}(\mathcal D)\) over \(\mathrm{Spec}(\mathcal O[1/e])\) where \( \mathrm{Sh}(\mathcal D)\) is a PEL-type moduli space and \(\mathcal D\) is the defining PEL datum; the subvariety of \(\mathcal A_g\) is an irreducible component of \( \mathrm{Sh}(\mathcal D)_{\mathbb C}\). If \(p\) is a rational prime not dividing \(|G|\), then the maximal \(p\)-rank, Ekedahl-Oort type and Newton polygon occuring on \( \mathrm{Sh}(\mathcal D)_{\overline{\mathbb F}_p}\) serves as a bound on those occuring on \(\mathcal M\). The maximal Ekedahl-Oort type and Newton polygon occuring on \( \mathrm{Sh}(\mathcal D)_{\overline{\mathbb F}_p}\) is said to be \(\mathcal D\)-ordinary.\N\NThe authors of the paper under review prove the following. Let \((G,\gamma, a)\) be a monodromy datum for abelian \(G\)-covers of \(\mathbb P^1\), and let \(p\) be a rational prime greater than \(|G|(\gamma-2)\). If \(\gamma\le 5\), then the Ekedahl-Oort type and Newton polygon of the generic \(G\)-cover of \(\mathbb P^1\) over \(\overline{\mathbb F}_p\) are \(\mathcal D\)-ordinary. Their method works for larger values of \(\gamma\), and they construct infinitely many examples of monodromy data where \(\gamma\ge 6\) that satisfy the above result. By this result, the authors introduce new examples of Newton polygons that occur for the Jacobians of smooth curves, and of unlikely intersections of the Torelli locus with Newton strata in Siegel varieties.