Canonical models of Shimura curves J.S. Milne April 4, 2003, v0.0 Abstract As an introduction to Shimura varieties, and, in particular, to Deligne’s Bourbaki and Corvallis talks (Deligne 1971, 1979), I explain the main ideas and results of the general theory of Shimura varieties in the context of Shimura curves. These notes had their origin in a two-hour lecture I gave on September 10, 2002. They are available at www.jmilne.org/math/. Please send corrections and comments to me at
[email protected]. Contents Introduction . 3 1 Preliminaries 5 Algebraic varieties and their connected components . 5 Easy descent theory . 6 Adeles........................................` 8 2 Elliptic modular curves over C 12 ◦ The curve SΓ as a double coset space . 12 A finiteness statement . 14 The curve SK .................................... 14 Re-interpretation of X ............................... 17 Elliptic curves over C ................................ 18 Elliptic modular curves as parameter spaces over C . 20 Elliptic modular curves as moduli varieties over C . 23 3 Canonical models of elliptic modular curves 26 Statement of the main theorem . 26 Complex multiplication . 28 Special points . 30 Hard descent . 30 Existence of canonical models . 32 Definition of “canonical” . 32 1 CONTENTS 2 4 Automorphic vector bundles 33 5 Quaternionic Shimura curves 34 Quaternion algebras . 34 Quaternionic modular curves . 35 Quaternionic nonmodular curves . 36 6 Remarks on the general case 37 Deligne’s axioms . 37 Rough classification of Shimura varieties . 38 Main results on the existence of canonical models (post Shimura) . 38 CONTENTS 3 Introduction Let + X = {z ∈ C | =(z) > 0}. + Then SL2(R) acts transitively on X , a b az + b · z = , c d cz + d and the subgroup fixing i is the compact group a b 2 2 SO2 = a + b = 1 .