English

The non-existence of stable Schottky forms

Algebraic Geometry 2019-02-20 v4

Abstract

Let AgSA_g^S be the Satake compactification of the moduli space AgA_g of principally polarized abelian gg-folds and MgSM_g^S the closure of the image of the moduli space MgM_g of genus gg curves in AgA_g under the Jacobian morphism. Then AgSA_g^S lies in the boundary of Ag+mSA_{g+m}^S for any mm. We prove that Mg+mSM_{g+m}^S and AgSA_g^S do not meet transversely in Ag+mSA_{g+m}^S, but rather that their intersection contains the mmth order infinitesimal neighbourhood of MgSM_g^S in AgSA_g^S. We deduce that there is no non-trivial stable Siegel modular form that vanishes on MgM_g for every gg. In particular, given two inequivalent positive even unimodular quadratic forms PP and QQ, there is a curve whose period matrix distinguishes between the theta series of PP and QQ.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1112.6137,
  title  = {The non-existence of stable Schottky forms},
  author = {G. Codogni and N. I. Shepherd-Barron},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.6137},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

Corrected version, using Yamada's correct version of Fay's formula for the period matrix of a certain degenerating family of curves. To appear in Compositio Mathematica