English

Serre's uniformity question and proper subgroups of $C_{ns}^+(p)$

Number Theory 2025-11-26 v2 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

Serre's uniformity question asks whether there exists a bound N>0N>0 such that, for every non-CM elliptic curve EE over Q\mathbb{Q} and every prime p>Np>N, the residual Galois representation ρE,p:Gal(Q/Q)Aut(E[p])\rho_{E,p}:\operatorname{Gal}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}}/\mathbb{Q}) \to \operatorname{Aut}(E[p]) is surjective. The work of many authors has shown that, for p>37p>37, this representation is either surjective or has image contained in the normaliser of a non-split Cartan subgroup Cns+(p)C_{ns}^+(p). Zywina has further proved that, whenever ρE,p\rho_{E,p} is not surjective for p>37p>37, its image is either Cns+(p)C_{ns}^+(p) or a certain subgroup G(p)G(p) of Cns+(p)C_{ns}^+(p) of index 33. Recently, Le Fourn and Lemos showed that the index-33 case cannot arise for p>1.4107p>1.4 \cdot 10^7. We strengthen this result by proving that the image of ρE,p\rho_{E, p} is not conjugate to G(p)G(p) for any prime larger than 55.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.17780,
  title  = {Serre's uniformity question and proper subgroups of $C_{ns}^+(p)$},
  author = {Lorenzo Furio and Davide Lombardo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.17780},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

35 pages. Final version, to appear in Algebra & Number Theory