English

Modularity from $q$-series

Number Theory 2026-05-19 v5 Combinatorics

Abstract

In 1975, G. E. Andrews challenged the mathematics community to address L. Ehrenpreis' problem, which was to directly prove the modularity of the Rogers-Ramanujan qq-series' summatory forms. This question is important because many different qq-series appearing in combinatorics, representation theory, and physics often seem to be mysteriously modular, yet there is no general test to confirm this directly from the exotic qq-series expressions. In this note, we answer the challenge. We use qq-series algebra, first-order qq-differential systems, and analytic continuation with monodromy to give a criterion that decides when such series are modular. Specifically, we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for a vector of holomorphic qq-series on q<1|q|<1 to form a vector-valued modular function without modular input, providing a clear path to modularity for strange qq-series.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.20316,
  title  = {Modularity from $q$-series},
  author = {Ken Ono},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.20316},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Minor revisions based on referee's comments. Clarifying clearly that the proof of Theorem 4 doesn't depend on the Jacobi Triple Product or modularity in a hidden way

R2 v1 2026-07-01T05:54:30.628Z