English

Coarse base change fails for some modular curves

Number Theory 2016-10-26 v2 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

For a congruence level HGL2(Z^)H \subset \mathrm{GL}_2(\hat{\mathbb{Z}}), the formation of the modular curve XHX_H, i.e., of the coarse moduli space of the level HH modular stack XH\mathscr{X}_H, is known to commute with arbitrary base change in a wide range of cases. We exhibit infinitely many HH, for instance, H=Γ1(4)H = \Gamma_1(4), for which this coarse base change property fails. In our examples failure is witnessed for base change to F2\mathbb{F}_2 and for any Z(2)\mathbb{Z}_{(2)}-fiberwise dense open substack of XH\mathscr{X}_H. These examples fill in several open entries in a table in the book of Katz and Mazur.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1608.01249,
  title  = {Coarse base change fails for some modular curves},
  author = {Kestutis Cesnavicius},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.01249},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

7 pages; final version, to appear in Algebraic Geometry

R2 v1 2026-06-22T15:11:20.218Z