Coates-Wiles towers in dimension two (Q802659)

The author calculates the conductor of certain generalized Kummer extensions associated with an abelian surface with complex multiplication. More precisely, let A be a polarized abelian surface with complex multiplication by a totally imaginary quartic number field K. Let Q be a point of infinite order in A(K). Let p be a rational prime satisfying \(p\equiv 5\) modulo 6, inert in K, prime to the degree of the polarization, and at which A has good reduction; if \(K={\mathbb{Q}}(e^{2\pi i/5})\), assume further that \(p\equiv 7\) or 18 modulo 25. For \(n\geq 1\), let \(K_ n\) be the field obtained by adjoining the coordinates of all \(p^ n\) torsion points on A to K, and let \(L_ n=K_ n(\frac{1}{p^ n}Q)\). Let e be the smallest integer such that \(L_ e/K_ e\) is ramified at the unique prime of \(K_ e\) above p. This is the only prime where \(L_ e/K_ e\) can ramify, and the author shows that the exponent of the conductor there is 2 or \(p^ 2-p+2\); further, if the rank of the closure of A(K) in \(A(K_ p)\) over the completion at p of the ring of complex multiplication is 2, then both possibilities occur; in particular, by a transcendence result of M. Waldschmidt, both possibilities occur if the rank of A(K) over the ring of complex multiplication is at least 5. An analogous result for elliptic curves figures in Gupta and Stark's proof of the Coates-Wiles theorem; the key is that by class field theory, the existence of a case where the exponent is 2 implies that every principal unit in \(K_ n\) is in fact congruent to 1 modulo the square of the ideal above p.