Indices of nilpotency in certain spaces of modular forms

We study the index of nilpotency relative to certain Hecke operators in spaces of modular forms with integer weight and level $N$ with integer coefficients modulo primes $p$ for $(p, N) \in \{(3, 1), (5, 1), (7, 1), (3, 4)\}$. In these settings, we prove upper bounds on certain indices of nilpotency. As an application of our bounds, we prove infinite families of congruences for $p^t$-core partition functions modulo $p$ for $p\in \{3, 5, 7\}$ and $t\geq 1$, and we prove an infinite family of congruences modulo $3$ for the $r$th power partition function, $p_r(n)$, when $r = 12k$ with $\gcd(k,6) = 1$. We also include conjectures on a function which quantifies degree lowering on powers of the Delta function by the relevant Hecke operators in these settings, and on the index of nilpotency relative to a modification of this degree-lowering function.