English

Hypergeometric motives and the generalized Fermat equation

Number Theory 2025-12-18 v2

Abstract

In the beautiful article [11] Darmon proposed a program to study integral solutions of the generalized Fermat equation Axp+Byq=CzrAx^p+By^q=Cz^r. In the aforementioned article, Darmon proved many steps of the program, by exhibiting models of hyperelliptic/superelliptic curves lifting what he called ''Frey representations'', Galois representations over a finite field of characteristic pp. The goal of the present article is to show how hypergeometric motives are more natural objects to obtain the global representations constructed by Darmon, allowing to prove most steps of his program without the need of algebraic models.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.08804,
  title  = {Hypergeometric motives and the generalized Fermat equation},
  author = {Franco Golfieri Madriaga and Ariel Pacetti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.08804},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Revised version with a significant reorganization of the exposition. In addition, Section 7 (''Bounds at wild primes'') has been added, providing proofs of bounds on the exponents of wild primes in the conductor. 31 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:31:41.456Z