Modularity and Moduli Spaces

ag.algebraic-geometry nt.number-theory
Start Date
2019-10-20 
End Date
2019-10-25 
Institution
Casa Matemática Oaxaca 
City
Oaxaca 
Country
Mexico 
Meeting Type
conference 
Homepage
http://www.birs.ca/events/2019/5-day-workshops/19w5210 
Contact Name
 
Created
 
Modified
 

Description

Modularity. Until relatively recently, the celebrated Taylor--Wiles method for establishing the automorphy of Galois representations carried several significant limitations. First, the method applied only to Galois representations expected to come from cohomological automorphic forms of regular weight. For classical modular forms this excludes the case of weight 1 forms. Second, the locally symmetric space in whose cohomology the automorphic form is expected to arise was required to be an algebraic variety (a Shimura variety). This excludes for instance the case of elliptic curves over imaginary quadratic fields, where the locally symmetric space is 3-dimensional, and so cannot even admit a complex structure. Finally, in the absence of results towards Serre's conjecture on the modularity of mod p Galois representations, the Taylor--Wiles method generally only establishes the potential automorphy of Galois representations, i.e., automorphy after a finite base change.

In a major breakthrough, Calegari--Geraghty have introduced a derived version of the Taylor--Wiles method which has the potential to remove the first two of these restrictions. To realize the potential of the Calegari--Geraghty method requires overcoming a number of significant challenges in the theory of automorphic forms and the arithmetic of Shimura varieties. For instance one needs to know the existence of Galois representations attached to torsion classes in the cohomology of locally symmetric spaces, as well as strong forms of local-global compatibility for those representations. Scholze [SchTorsion] (and independently Boxer [Boxer] in some special cases) has addressed the former, and work of Cariani--Scholze [CS] on the vanishing of torsion in the cohomology of non-compact Shimura varieties has made progress towards the latter. These advances already have remarkable applications, such as the proof of potential modularity of elliptic curves over imaginary quadratic fields, as well as the Sato--Tate conjecture for such curves [tenauthor].

In addition to examining these many important developments, the workshop will contemplate possible future improvements to the Calegari--Geraghty method, such as may come from incorporating the derived deformation theory of Galatius--Venkatesh [GV]. We will also explore the prospects for proving actual (rather than potential) modularity of elliptic curves over some CM fields. Another expected topic is work in progress by Boxer--Calegari--Gee--Pilloni on the potential automorphy of abelian surfaces, using the Calegari--Geraghty method, as well as Pilloni's ``higher Hida theory'' for coherent cohomology of Shimura varieties [Pilloni].

Moduli of Galois representations. In ongoing work, Emerton and Gee are constructing moduli stacks which parameterize p-adic Galois representations arising from p-adic local fields. In the classical deformation theory of Galois representations, one considers formal families of deformations of a fixed mod p Galois representation; in contrast, the Emerton--Gee stacks admit non-constant families of mod p Galois representations, raising the possibility of arguing by interpolating between them. Furthermore, thanks to the global geometry of these spaces one has more algebro-geometric tools at one's disposal to study them.

The Emerton--Gee moduli stacks are built out of moduli spaces of integral p-adic Hodge theory data. Several incarnations of p-adic Hodge theory play a role in constructing and understanding these spaces, including Breuil-Kisin modules, Wach modules, and Tong Liu's (ϕ,Gˆ)-modules. Understanding how these different theories interact should a play an important role in the further development of this field. There remains many open questions about these stacks. What are the components of the special fiber? Are they normal? Cohen--Macaulay? What kind of singularities do they have? What is the structure of the line bundles/coherent sheaves on these spaces? Answers to these questions would have broad implications for modularity and the p-adic Langlands program.

The geometry of the Emerton--Gee stacks is closely linked to the Breuil--M\'ezard conjecture, which first arose in the context of attempt to generalize the Taylor--Wiles method. This conjecture measures the complexity of local Galois deformation rings (i.e., the versal deformation rings at closed points of Emerton--Gee stacks) in terms of the modular representation theory of GLn;\ understanding the geometry of local deformation spaces is essential for proving modularity lifting theorems. The Breuil--M\'ezard conjecture is in turn closely connected to the so-called weight part of Serre's conjecture, which can be viewed as a step towards the conjectural p-adic local Langlands correspondence.

For example, Caraiani--Emerton--Gee--Savitt [CEGS] are able to use known results about the geometric Breuil--M\'ezard conjecture and the weight part of Serre's conjecture for GL2 to analyze the irreducible components of certain Emerton--Gee stacks and relate them to the modular representation theory of GL2. The moduli stack perspective has also already played a role in the proof of the weight part of Serre's conjecture in generic situations in higher dimensions [LLLM1, LLLM2] and in on-going work of Emerton--Gee on the existence of crystalline lifts of mod p representations.

Despite considerable progress (e.g.\ [Herzig, GHS]), there still is no unconditional statement of the weight part of Serre's conjecture beyond the case of GL2. The Emerton-Gee moduli stack may be helpful for understanding this conjecture, as illustrated by the work of [CEGS]. One objective of the workshop will be to formulate an unconditional weight part of Serre's conjecture in terms of the Emerton-Gee stack, and to understand how such a conjecture relates to modular representation theory and to the Breuil-M\'ezard conjecture.

Finally, there are already tantalizing hints, for instance the work of [EGS] proving Breuil's local-global compatibility conjecture for types in the p-adic Langlands program, that the Emerton--Gee moduli stacks will play an important role in future developments on the modularity of Galois representations. However, this avenue is as yet largely unexplored. Another goal of this workshop is to bring together leading experts involved in these two strands of research in order to explore the possible synergies between them.

Local models for Galois deformation spaces. Although the two flavors of moduli spaces (Shimura varieties, Galois deformation spaces) that we have contemplated in this proposal are rather different, Kisin [Kis09a] observed that there is a surprising and fundamental relation between them:\ namely, their singularities are both modeled by relatively simpler moduli spaces called local models of Shimura varieties. These local models have been studied extensively in the context arithmetic of Shimura varieties, so that much is known about their geometry. Kisin's observation led to improved modularity lifting theorems, which in turn played a key role in the eventual proof of Serre's original conjecture for GL2/Q.

Beyond dimension two, in order to study regular weight Galois deformation spaces, there is an additional condition which comes from a subtle analogue of Griffiths transverality in p-adic Hodge theory. In [LLLM1,LLLM2], Le--Le Hung--Levin--Morra give explicit presentations for certain potentially crystalline deformation rings with Hodge--Tate weights (0,1,2) by studying this Griffiths transversality condition, and as an application prove cases of the weight part of Serre's conjecture and other related conjectures in dimension three. In higher dimension, the connection with local models is weaker and does not capture the Griffiths transversality condition. Ongoing work of Le--Le Hung--Levin--Morra constructs local models for Galois deformation spaces in generic situations and will shed light on the structure of generic parts of the Emerton-Gee moduli stack. Further, there are mysterious connections between these local models and objects in geometric representation theory which have not yet been explored.

There are a number of parallels between the mod p and p-adic stories. A striking example of this is Breuil--Hellmann--Schraen's recent proof of a Breuil--M\'ezard type conjecture for locally analytic representations, which furthermore leads to a proof of the locally analytic socle conjecture of Breuil [BHS]. They study the geometry of a p-adic family of Galois representations called the trianguline variety. In another parallel to the mod p picture, they create a link between the geometry of these p-adic families to objects in geometric representation theory.

By sharing these new developments broadly with other experts in the field, the workshop aims to spur further development of connections between moduli of Galois representations and the geometry of (generalized) local models, and of parallels between the p-adic and mod p settings; and to contemplate what the implications might be for the geometry of Emerton--Gee stacks.

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