The number of monodromy representations of abelian varieties of low \(p\)-rank (Q724284)

This is a careful presentation of the results of the author's Ph. D. Thesis [Representations of fundamental groups of abelian varieties in characteristic p, \url{https://search.proquest.com/docview/1811452766} (2016)], written under the supervision T. Chinburg. The number in question is $\#\Hom(\pi_1(A_g), \mathrm{GL}({\mathbb F}_q)) $, where $A_g$ is the abelian variety of dimension $g$ and $p$-rank ${\lambda}$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic $p > 0$, (${\lambda} = 0,\; 1$), $\pi_1(A_g) = \pi_1^{\text{ét}}(A_g,a)$ is the étale fundamental group and $q$ is an any power of prime $p$. The author derives formulas for these numbers in cases $\lambda = 0$ (Theorem 1), $\lambda = 1$ (Theorem 2), and the formula for number of homomorphisms up to conjugation in the case of the $p$-rank $0$ (Theorem 3). ``All three counting formulas are polynomial in $q$, depending on $g$ and $n$ but not on the characteristic.'' Let $\overline{\mathbb F}_q$ be the algebraic closure of ${\mathbb F}_q$. He also shows that for fixed $n$ and $g$, the space of representations $R = \Hom(\pi_1(A_g), \mathrm{GL}(\overline{\mathbb F}_q))$ of abelian varieties of $p$-rank $0$ is constructible, i.e., is a Boolean combination of Zariski-closed sets, and investigates the polynomial $P(T)$ such that $P(g) = \#R({\mathbb F}_q)$ gives the number of ${\mathbb F}_q$-rational points of $R$. This investigation uses results by Katz's appendix in [\textit{T. Hausel} and \textit{F. Rodriguez-Villegas}, Invent. Math. 174, No. 3, 555--624 (2008; Zbl 1213.14020)], as well as results by \textit{R. M. Guralnick} and \textit{B. A. Sethuraman} [Linear Algebra Appl. 310, No. 1--3, 139--148 (2000; Zbl 0971.15007)]. Let $\Gamma$ be a finitely-generated group and $G$ be a finite group of the order $|G|$. By a result of \textit{C. Gordon} and \textit{F. Rodriguez-Villegas} [J. Algebra 350, No. 1, 300--307 (2012; Zbl 1260.20066)], $\Gamma$ has infinite abelization if and only if it satisfies the divisibility of $\#\Hom(\Gamma,G)$ by $|G|$ for all finite groups $G$. Let $S$ be a set of prime numbers (not necessary finite), $\mathbb S$ be the multiplicative set generated by elements of $S$ and $\Gamma\rtimes{{\mathbb Z}_S}$ be the semidirect product. The author of the paper under review proves that, given any topologically finitely-generated profinite group $\Gamma$ and finite groups $G$, the proposition (clame, expression, statement) $\frac{\#\Hom(\Gamma\rtimes {{\hat {\mathbb Z}}_S},G)}{|G|} \in {\mathbb S}^{-1}{\mathbb Z}$ is true for all natural numbers in $\hat {{\mathbb Z}}_S = \varprojlim {\mathbb Z}/n$ apart from natural numbers divisible by any prime in $S$. The converse is also true. The paper contains other related results. Reviewer's remark: It is interesting to relay results of this paper with results of the article by \textit{A. Aizenbud} and \textit{N. Avni} [Duke Math. J. 167, No. 14, 2721--2743 (2018; Zbl 1436.14044)].