The Prym Map: from Coverings to Abelian Varieties
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The Prym Map: From Coverings to Abelian Varieties Angela Ortega Introduction projective variety. Although it can be defined over an arbi- Abelian varieties are very important objects that lie at the trary field 퐾, in this note we will only consider the case of crossroads of several areas in mathematics: algebraic ge- complex abelian varieties, that is 퐾 = ℂ. ometry, complex analysis, and number theory. So they Abelian varieties made their appearance at the begin- can be studied from different points of view. An abelian ning of the nineteenth century, when Niels Henrik Abel variety over a field 퐾 is an abelian group which admits and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi studied hyperelliptic integrals. an embedding in a projective space ℙ(퐾), so it is also a A hyperelliptic integral is an integral of the form 푝(푧) Angela Ortega is a researcher in mathematics at Humboldt Universität zu ∫ 푑푧, Berlin. Her email address is [email protected]. 훾 √푞(푧) Communicated by Notices Associate Editors Daniel Krashen and Steven Sam. where 푝(푧) is a polynomial, 푞(푧) = (푧 − 푎1) ⋯ (푧 − 푎푛) is a For permission to reprint this article, please contact: polynomial of degree 푛 with pairwise distinct roots 푎푖, and [email protected]. 훾 is a path in ℂ. At the time of Abel and Jacobi it was known DOI: https://doi.org/10.1090/noti2150 that for 푛 = 1, 2 this integral could be solved by means 1316 NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 67, NUMBER 9 of trigonometric and logarithmic functions. For 푛 = 3, 4 one can solve it using elliptic functions, but for 푛 ≥ 5 no way of integrating this function is known in general. Con- 1 sidered as a function on ℂ, the differential 푑푧 is not √푞(푧) singled-valued, but it can be seen as a holomorphic dif- ferential on the compact Riemann surface (which is also a √ line bundle 퐿 on the torus 푉/Γ, called a polarization. The smooth algebraic curve over ℂ) associated to 푞(푧), that is, ⊗푘 1 sections of 퐿 , for some 푘 > 0, provide an embedding of the double covering 퐶 of ℙ ramified at the points 푎1, … , 푎푛. 1 0 ⊗푘 ∗ 푁 1 퐴 into a projective space ℙ퐻 (퐴, 퐿 ) ≃ ℙ : The difficulty to integrate 푑푧 comes from the topolog- √푞(푧) 푥 ↦ [푠 (푥) ∶ 푠 (푥) ∶ ⋯ ∶ 푠 (푥)], ical structure of 퐶. Abel and Jacobi had the idea to inte- 0 1 푁 grate all the holomorphic differentials on 퐶 at the same where 푠0, 푠1, … , 푠푁 form a basis of the space of sections 푖−1 1 퐻0(퐴, 퐿⊗푘). A polarization has several incarnations: (1) time by considering a basis of the form 휔푖 ∶= 푧 푑푧, √푞(푧) 2 푛−1 푛−1 an ample line bundle 퐿; (2) a nondegenerated alternating 푖 = 1, … , [ ]. The dimension 푔 ∶= [ ] of the vector 2 2 bilinear form 퐸 ∶ 푉 × 푉 → ℝ with 퐸(Γ, Γ) ⊂ ℤ; (3) a non- 0 space of holomorphic differentials (denoted by 퐻 (퐶, 휔퐶)) degenerated Hermitian form 퐻 on 푉 with Im 퐻(Γ, Γ) ⊂ ℤ; is called the genus of 퐶. Topologically, the genus is the and (4) a Weil divisor Θ ⊂ 푋 with the property that the number of “holes” of the Riemann surface 퐶 (see Figure set {푎 ∈ 퐴 ∣ Θ − 푎 ∼ Θ} is finite. One has 퐿 = 풪퐴(Θ), 1). Let 푝0 ∈ 퐶 be a fixed point. Around this point wecan the associated line bundle to the divisor Θ; conversely, giv- define the map ing a polarization 퐿 one recovers Θ as the zero locus of a 푝 푝 section of 퐿. There is a basis of 푉 with respect to which 0 퐷 푝 ↦ (∫ 푤1,…, ∫ 푤푔) , (1) the alternating form 퐸 has as matrix ( −퐷 0 ), where 퐷 is a 푝0 푝0 diagonal matrix with positive integer entries 푑1, … , 푑푔 sat- but it cannot be extended to the whole 퐶 because these in- isfying 푑푖|푑푖+1 for 푖 = 1, … , 푔 − 1. The vector (푑1, … , 푑푔) is 퐿 tegrals depend on the path between 푝0 and 푝. The way called the type of the polarization of , and when it is of the out is to consider the image modulo the values of inte- form (1, … , 1) the polarization is principal. In this case the grals along closed paths to obtain a well-defined map. Let dimension of the space of sections of 퐿 is one, so we have 2푔 퐻1(퐶, ℤ) ≃ ℤ be the group of closed paths in 퐶 (which canonically associated to the abelian variety a unique geo- does not depend on the starting point) modulo homol- metric object, its theta divisor. This is one of the reasons ogy. This group can be seen as a full rank lattice inside why principal polarizations are the most studied ones. 0 ∗ 퐶 퐻 (퐶, 휔퐶) , via the injective map As we have seen, the Jacobian of an algebraic curve (or compact Riemann surface) is the complex torus 0 ∗ 훾 ↦ {휔 ↦ ∫휔} 퐽퐶 = 퐻 (퐶, 휔퐶) /퐻1(퐶, ℤ). 훾 The intersection product on 퐻1(퐶, ℤ) induces an alternat- assigning to a path 훾 the functional which integrates the 0 ∗ ing form 퐸 on 푉 ∶= 퐻 (퐶, 휔퐶) . More precisely, if we holomorphic differentials along 훾. Thus, the map (1) ex- choose a basis over ℤ, 훾1, ..., 훾2푔 of 퐻1(퐶, ℤ) as in Figure tends to a holomorphic map on 퐶, 0 ퟏ 1, the intersection product has as matrix ( 푔 ). As 푝 푝 −ퟏ푔 0 퐻 (퐶, ℤ) is a full rank lattice in 푉, the {훾 } form also a basis 훼 ∶ 푝 ↦ (∫ 푤1,…, ∫ 푤푔) mod 퐻1(퐶, ℤ), 1 푖 푝0 푝0 of 푉 as ℝ-vector space. One verifies then that with respect called the Abel–Jacobi map, and the complex torus 퐽퐶 ∶= to this basis, the intersection matrix gives an alternating 0 ∗ form 퐸 on 푉 defining a principal polarization Θ. 퐻 (퐶, 휔퐶) /퐻1(퐶, ℤ) is the Jacobian variety of 퐶. Conse- quently, the problem of integrating holomorphic differen- A one-dimensional abelian variety is also an algebraic tials on 퐶 is equivalent to describing the Jacobian variety curve of genus one, that is, an elliptic curve. The Jacobian of 퐶 and the Abel–Jacobi map 훼 ∶ 퐶 → 퐽퐶. Historically, of a genus one curve is then isomorphic to the curve itself. the Jacobian of a compact Riemann surface 퐶 is the first Algebraic geometers typically gather their objects of example of an abelian variety. study in families to investigate a general property or to The main idea we want to convey in this article is that single out interesting elements. Ideally, the set of all the one can construct and study abelian varieties using curves objects is itself an algebraic variety where one can apply and its surrounding geometry. known tools. This leads to the notion of moduli space, which is the variety parametrizing the objects. Fortunately, Abelian varieties and Jacobians. One can show that a complex abelian variety 퐴 is the quotient of a complex vector 1This is essentially the definition of ampleness of a line bundle. space 푉 by a full rank lattice Γ in 푉 together with an ample 2Or more precisely its first Chern class. OCTOBER 2020 NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY 1317 Since much more is known about the moduli space of curves than the moduli of abelian varieties, the answer to this question will help us understand better abelian vari- eties and their moduli spaces. Coverings of curves and Prym varieties. Consider a finite covering 푓 ∶ 퐶˜ → 퐶 of degree 푑 between two smooth pro- jective curves, and let 푔 and ̃푔 denote the genera of 퐶 and 퐶˜, respectively. By the Riemann–Hurwitz formula these Figure 1. Curve of genus 푔. genera are related by deg 푅 there exists a nice parameter space for all principally polar- ̃푔= 푑(푔 − 1) + + 1, (2) 2 ized abelian varieties (ppav) of fixed dimension 푔 (up to where 푅 denotes the ramification divisor of 푓, that is, the isomorphism). This moduli space can be constructed as set of points in 퐶˜ (counted with multiplicities) where the the quotient of the Siegel upper half plane map is not locally a homeomorphism. The map 푓 induces 푡 픥푔 ∶= {휏 ∈ 푀푔×푔(ℂ) ∣ 휏 = 휏, Im 휏 > 0} a map between the Jacobians of the curves, the norm map. As a group, the Jacobian 퐽퐶 is generated by the points of by the action of the symplectic group the curve 퐶, and in fact 퐽퐶 parametrizes classes of linear 푆푝2푔(ℤ) equivalence of divisors of degree zero. With this in mind 0 ퟏ퐠 푡 0 ퟏ퐠 one can simply define the norm map as the pushforward = {푀 ∈ 퐺퐿2푔(ℤ) ∶ 푀 ( ) 푀 = ( )} −ퟏ퐠 0 −ퟏ퐠 0 of divisors from 퐶˜ to 퐶: given by Nm푓 ∶ 퐽퐶˜ → 퐽퐶, [∑ 푛푖푝푖] ↦ [∑ 푛푖푓(푝푖)] , 푖 푖 푎 푏 −1 푀 = ( ) ∈ 푆푝2푔(ℤ), 푀 ⋅ 휏 = (푎 + 푏휏)(푐 + 푑휏) . 푐 푑 where the sum is finite, ∑ 푛푖 = 0 with 푛푖 ∈ ℤ, and the Thus, every point in the quotient 픥 /푆푝 (ℤ) represents an bracket denotes the class of linear equivalence. The ker- 푔 푔 Nm Nm isomorphism class of a principally polarized abelian vari- nel of 푓 is not necessarily connected, but since 푓 ety of dimension 푔: for each 휏 ∈ 픥 set 퐴 = ℂ푔/휏ℤ푔 ⊕ ℤ푔, is a homomorphism of groups the connected component 푔 휏 ˜ then containing the zero is naturally a subgroup of 퐽퐶. This subgroup is the Prym variety of 푓 denoted by 퐴 ≃ 퐴 ′ as ppav 휏 휏 푃(푓) ∶= (Ker Nm )0 ⊂ 퐽퐶.˜ (3) ′ 푓 ⇔ ∃ 푀 ∈ 푆푝2푔(ℤ) s.t.