Cyclic covers and Ihara's question

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Publication:2336056



Abstract: Let ell be a rational prime and k a number field. Given a superelliptic curve C/k of ell-power degree, we describe the field generated by the ell-power torsion of the Jacobian variety in terms of the branch set and reduction type of C (and hence, in terms of data determined by a suitable affine model of C). If the Jacobian is good away from ell and the branch set is defined over a pro-ell extension of k(muellinfty) unramified away from ell, then the ell-power torsion of the Jacobian is rational over the maximal such extension. By decomposing the covering into a chain of successive cyclic ell-coverings, the mod ell Galois representation attached to the Jacobian is decomposed into a block triangular form. The blocks on the diagonal of this form are further decomposed in terms of the Tate twists of certain subgroups Ws of the quotients of the Jacobians of successive coverings. The result is a natural extension of earlier work by Anderson and Ihara, who demonstrated that a stricter condition on the branch locus guarantees the ell-power torsion of the Jacobian is rational over the fixed field of the kernel of the canonical pro-ell outer Galois representation attached to an open subset of mathbfP1.


Let \(k\) be a number field, and let \(G_k\) be the absolute Galois group of \(k\). Let \(\ell\) be a rational prime, and let \(S_0\) be a \(G_k\)-stable finite subset of \(\mathbb{P}^1_{\bar k}\) containing \(\{0,1,\infty\}\). Consider a \(\bar k\)-morphism \(X \to \mathbb{P}^1_{\bar k}\) where \(X/\bar k\) is a complete smooth irreducible curve such that the Galois closure of the morphism has degree equal to a power of \(\ell\). This setup admits a natural action of the pro-\(\ell\) fundamental group of \( \mathbb{P}^1 - S_0\), and the authors of the paper are interested in the canonical pro-\(\ell\) outer Galois representation \(\Phi_k : G_k \to \mathrm{Out}( \pi_1^{\mathrm{pro-}\ell}(\mathbb{P}^1 - S_0))\). Anderson and Ihara studied this setup, and introduced a combinatorial object \(\mathbb S\) consisting of finite subsets \(S\) of \(\mathbb P^1_{\bar k}\) obtained by pulling back \(S_0\) through a finite combination of certain linear fractional transformations and \(\ell\)th power mappings. They proved that \textit{ given a monic polynomial \(f(x)\in k[x]\) and \(\lambda\in k\), the \(\ell\)-power torsion of the Jacobian variety \(J/k\) defined by the superelliptic curve \(y^{\ell^n} = \lambda f(x)\) is defined over \(\mathrm{ker}(\Phi_{\mathbb Q})\) if \(S_0=\{0,1,\infty\}\), \(k\) is fixed by \(\mathrm{ker}(\Phi_{\mathbb Q})\), and there are two subsets \(S,S'\) in \(\mathbb S\) such that \(\lambda \in S\) and \(S'\) contains the roots of \(f(x)\).} The authors of the paper under review attempt to generalize the Anderson-Ihara result by avoiding the use of \(\mathbb S\). Let \(H_k\) be the maximal pro-\(\ell\) extension of \(k(\mathbf{\mu_{\ell^\infty}})\) unramified away from \(\ell\) where \(\mu_{\ell^\infty}\) is the subset of \(\bar{\mathbb Q}\) consisting of the \(\ell\)-power roots of unity. If \(S_0=\{0,1,\infty\}\), then \(\mathrm{ker}(\Phi_k) \subset H_k\), and in addition if \(k=\mathbb Q\) and \(\ell\) is an odd regular prime, then Sharifi showed that \(\mathrm{ker}(\Phi_k) = H_k\) by the Delign-Ihara Conjecture, which is now a theorem. The authors of the paper under review prove the following version. Let \(J/k\) be the Jacobian variety defined by a superelliptic curve \(y^{\ell^n} = f(x)\) where \(f(x)\in k[x]\), and let \(S\) be the branch locus of the curve. \textit{ If \(J\) has good reduction away from \(\ell\), and \(S\subset H_k\), then the \(\ell\)-power torsion of \(J\) is defined over \(H_k\).}











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