Jacobians with a vanishing theta-null in genus 4 (Q940749)

Let \( A_g \) be the (coarse) parameter space of principally polarized abelian varities over the complex number field and \(I_g \) the closure of the locus of Jacobians in \(A_g\).~Denote by \(N_k \subset A_g \) the locus of principally polarized abeilian varieties such that \(\dim \text{Sing}( \Theta ) \geq k \). The locus \( I_g\) has been extensively studied by \textit{A. Andreotti} and \textit{A. L. Mayer} [Ann.~Sc.~Norm.~Sup.~Pisa,~21,~3, 189--238 (1967; Zbl 0222.14024)], Beauville, Debarre amongst various authors. If we denote by \(\theta_{n}\) the theta null divisor it has been shown for example that for \( g\geq 4\) the locus \(N_{g-4}\) is reducible and therefore not equal to \(I_g\). The authors objective in this paper is to study the intersection of \(I_g\) with with the other components of \(N_{g-4}\) or with \(\theta_n \subset N_0 \). More precisely, they study the locus within \(\theta_n\) where the rank of the tangent cone to the theta divisor at this point is three, which is their main theorem here proved in section three. They claim to prove a conjectured attributed to Farkas that in genus four this condition characterizes Jacobians with a vanishing theta-null. The paper is organized as follows. In section one they give the basic notations and definitions; they recall and define the notions of Siegel upper half-space, theta functions with characteristics (even and odd), modular forms, vector-valued modular forms with multiplier, the level parameter spaces \(A_g(4,8)\) and the theta null-divisor and \(\theta_n^h\) for \(h=0,\ldots,g \) which is the subset of \(\theta_n\) where the rank ot the tangent cone to the theta divisor at the point \( (\tau \epsilon + \delta)/2\) is at most \(h\). In section two, the authors describe equations for \(\theta_n^h\) in theorem 9.~The authors main theorem is theorem 10 which states that \( \theta_n^3 = I_4 \cap \theta_n\). The reverse inclusion is the well known Kempf's singularity theorem which states that the rank of the Hessian of the theta function of the tangent cone at a 2- torsion point is equal to three. For the other inclusion, the authors define as \(J\) the closure of the jacobian locus of the theta constant map and \(A\) the closure of the theta constant map and \(T = A \cap \{ \theta(\tau)= 0 \}\). They prove in lemma 12 that \( \dim ( S )= \dim ( J \cap T) = 8 \). They also prove that \( \deg( J \cap T)_{red} = 8 \deg(A)\) in lemma 13 and in lemma 15 they show that \( \deg ( S_{red}) = 8 \deg( A) \) concluding the proof of the theorem. They conclude the paper by showing in corollary 16 that for \( \tau \in A_g\) some theta constant vanishes and if all three by three minors of the associated Hessian vanish then \( \tau \) has reducible theta divisor.