A combinatorial Li-Yau inequality and rational points on curves

DOI10.1007/S00208-014-1067-XMaRDI QIDQ2255277zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Gunther Cornelissen, Fumiharu Kato, Janne Kool

Publication date 9 February 2015

Published in Mathematische Annalen (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.2681

Abstract: We present a method to control gonality of nonarchimedean curves based on graph theory. Let k denote a complete nonarchimedean valued field. We first prove a lower bound for the gonality of a curve over the algebraic closure of k in terms of the minimal degree of a class of graph maps, namely: one should minimize over all so-called finite harmonic graph morphisms to trees, that originate from any refinement of the dual graph of the stable model of the curve. Next comes our main result: we prove a lower bound for the degree of such a graph morphism in terms of the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian and some "volume" of the original graph; this can be seen as a substitute for graphs of the Li-Yau inequality from differential geometry, although we also prove that the strict analogue of the original inequality fails for general graphs. Finally, we apply the results to give a lower bound for the gonality of arbitrary Drinfeld modular curves over finite fields and for general congruence subgroups Gamma of Gamma(1) that is linear in the index [Gamma(1):Gamma], with a constant that only depends on the residue field degree and the degree of the chosen "infinite" place. This is a function field analogue of a theorem of Abramovich for classical modular curves. We present applications to uniform boundedness of torsion of rank two Drinfeld modules that improve upon existing results, and to lower bounds on the modular degree of certain elliptic curves over function fields that solve a problem of Papikian.

Review text

Let \(X\) be a smooth projective curve over a field \(k\) and let \(\mathrm{gon}_k(X)\) denote the gonality of \(X\) which by definition is the the minimal degree of a non-constant morphism defined over \(k\) from \(X\) to the projective line \({\mathbb P}^1_k\). If \(k = {\mathbb C}\) is the field of complex numbers, \textit{P. Li} and \textit{S.-T. Yau} [Invent. Math. 69, 269--291 (1982; Zbl 0503.53042)] has established a lower bound of \(\mathrm{gon}_{\mathbb C}(X)\) in terms of the hyperbolic volume and the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian of \(X.\) The main themes of this paper under review are lower bounds for the gonalities of curves over non-Archimedean fields and their applications to the study of rational points on curves defined over global function fields. Now, let \(k\) be a complete non-Archimedean valued field with valuation ring \(R\). To establish an analogue of Li-Yau inequality in the non-Archimedean setting, the authors first prove an inequality between the geometric gonality \(\mathrm{gon}_{\bar{k}}(X)\) of \(X\) and the ``gonality of the reduction dual graphs of the special fiber of a stable \(R\)-model of \(X\) (Theorem~A). Namely, let \(\mathcal{X}\) be a stable \(R\)-model of \(X\) and let \(\Delta(\mathcal{X}_0)\) denote the intersection dual graph of the special fiber \(\mathcal{X}_0\). Then, the we have the inequality \(\mathrm{gon}_{\bar{k}}(X) \geq \mathrm{sgon}(\Delta(\mathcal{X}_0))\) where \(\mathrm{sgon}(G)\) denotes the \textit{stable gonality} of a finite graph \(G\) which is the minimal degree of a finite harmonic morphism from any refinement of \(G\) to a tree. The main result of this paper (Theorem~C) is a spectral lower bound for the sable gonality of a graph \(G.\) This result can seen as an analogue of Li-Yau inequality in graph theory. Although the authors showed that a strict graph theory analogue of Li-Yau inequality fails in general. A formula in terms of the first eigenvalue \(\lambda_G\) of the Laplacian of \(G\), the number of vertices \(|G|\) and the maximal vertex degree \(\Delta_G\) of \(G\) for the lower bound of \(\mathrm{sgon}(G)\) is given. Another part of this paper is to apply the main results to give lower bound for the gonality of arbitrary Drinfeld modular curves over finite field and for general congruence subgroups. This lower bound is shown to be linear in the index of the congruence subgroup in the full Drinfeld modular group. This is a positive characteristic analogue of \textit{D. Abramovich}'s result [Int. Math. Res. Not. 1996, No. 20, 1005--1011 (1996; Zbl 0878.14019)]. Arithmetic applications of these results include a statement about the uniform boundedness of torsions of rank two Drinfeld modules that improves existing results and the solution to a problem of \textit{M. Papikian} [J. Number Theory 97, No. 2, 317--349 (2002; Zbl 1067.11034)] on the lower bounds on the modular degree of certain elliptic curves over function fields.

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