Topological flatness of orthogonal local models in the split,even case. I

Local models are schemes, defined in terms of linear algebra, that were introduced by Rapoport and Zink to study the étale-local structure of integral models of certain PEL Shimura varieties over p-adic fields. A basic requirement for the integral models, or equivalently for the local models, is that they be flat. In the case of local models for even orthogonal groups, Genestier observed that the original definition of the local model does not yield a flat scheme. In a recent article, Pappas and Rapoport introduced a new condition to the moduli problem defining the local model, the so-called spin condition, and conjectured that the resulting “spin” local model is flat. We prove a preliminary form of their conjecture in the split, Iwahori case, namely that the spin local model is topologically flat. An essential combinatorial ingredient is the equivalence of μ-admissibility and μ-permissibility for two minuscule cocharacters μ in root systems of type D.     

On the flatness of models of certain Shimura varieties of PEL-type

Consider a PEL-Shimura variety associated to a unitary group that splits over an unramified extension of . Rapoport and Zink have defined a model of the Shimura variety over the ring of integers of the completion of the reflex field at a place lying over p, with parahoric level structures at p. We show that this model is flat, as conjectured by Rapoport and Zink, and that its special fibre is reduced. Received: 11 September 2000 / Published online: 24 September 2001     

Topological flatness of local models in the ramified case

Local models are schemes defined in terms of linear algebra which can be used to study the local structure of integral models of certain Shimura varieties, with parahoric level structure. We investigate the local models for groups of the form is a totally ramified extension, as defined by Pappas and Rapoport, and show that they are topologically flat. In the linear case, flatness can be deduced from this.     

Integral models of certain PEL Shimura varieties with {\Gamma_1(p)}-type level structure

We study p-adic integral models of certain PEL Shimura varieties with level subgroup at p related to the \({\Gamma_1(p)}\)-level subgroup in the case of modular curves. We will consider two cases: the case of Shimura varieties associated with unitary groups that split over an unramified extension of \({\mathbb{Q}_p}\) and the case of Siegel modular varieties. We construct local models, i.e. simpler schemes which are étale locally isomorphic to the integral models. Our integral models are defined by a moduli scheme using the notion of an Oort–Tate generator of a group scheme. We use these local models to find a resolution of the integral model in the case of the Siegel modular variety of genus 2. The resolution is regular with special fiber a nonreduced divisor with normal crossings.     

On the flatness of local models for the symplectic group

We investigate the bad reduction of certain Shimura varieties (associated to the symplectic group). More precisely, we look at a model of the Shimura variety at a prime p, with parahoric level structure at p. We show that this model is flat, as conjectured by Rapoport and Zink (Ann. of Math. Stud. 141 (1996)), and that its special fibre is reduced.A crucial ingredient is Faltings’ theorem on the normality of Schubert varieties in the affine flag variety.     

Reduction of Shimura varieties at parahoric levels

 The generalization of a conjecture of Langlands and Rapoport concerning the reduction of Shimura varieties given in an earlier paper of the author is extended to an even more general case. It is then checked in the case of a quaternionic Shimura variety. Some additional geometric information which will be used in the computation of semi-simple local L–functions is obtained in this case. Received: 19 July 2000     

On the torsion of Jacobians of principal modular curves of level 3<Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis></Superscript>

We demonstrate that the 3-power torsion points of the Jacobians of the principal modular curves X(3ⁿ) are fixed by the kernel of the canonical outer Galois representation of the pro-3 fundamental group of the projective line minus three points. The proof proceeds by demonstrating the curves in question satisfy a two-part criterion given by Anderson and Ihara. Two proofs of the second part of the criterion are provided; the first relies on a theorem of Shimura, while the second uses the moduli interpretation. Received: 30 September 2005     

Restriction varieties and geometric branching rules

This paper develops a new method for studying the cohomology of orthogonal flag varieties. Restriction varieties are subvarieties of orthogonal flag varieties defined by rank conditions with respect to (not necessarily isotropic) flags. They interpolate between Schubert varieties in orthogonal flag varieties and the restrictions of general Schubert varieties in ordinary flag varieties. We give a positive, geometric rule for calculating their cohomology classes, obtaining a branching rule for Schubert calculus for the inclusion of the orthogonal flag varieties in Type A flag varieties. Our rule, in addition to being an essential step in finding a Littlewood–Richardson rule, has applications to computing the moment polytopes of the inclusion of SO(n) in SU(n), the asymptotic of the restrictions of representations of SL(n) to SO(n) and the classes of the moduli spaces of rank two vector bundles with fixed odd determinant on hyperelliptic curves. Furthermore, for odd orthogonal flag varieties, we obtain an algorithm for expressing a Schubert cycle in terms of restrictions of Schubert cycles of Type A flag varieties, thereby giving a geometric (though not positive) algorithm for multiplying any two Schubert cycles.     

Local models of Shimura varieties and a conjecture of Kottwitz

We give a group theoretic definition of “local models” as sought after in the theory of Shimura varieties. These are projective schemes over the integers of a p-adic local field that are expected to model the singularities of integral models of Shimura varieties with parahoric level structure. Our local models are certain mixed characteristic degenerations of Grassmannian varieties; they are obtained by extending constructions of Beilinson, Drinfeld, Gaitsgory and the second-named author to mixed characteristics and to the case of general (tamely ramified) reductive groups. We study the singularities of local models and hence also of the corresponding integral models of Shimura varieties. In particular, we study the monodromy (inertia) action and show a commutativity property for the sheaves of nearby cycles. As a result, we prove a conjecture of Kottwitz which asserts that the semi-simple trace of Frobenius on the nearby cycles gives a function which is central in the parahoric Hecke algebra.     

Appendix: On parahoric subgroups

We give the proofs of some simple facts on parahoric subgroups and on Iwahori Weyl groups used in [T. Haines, The base change fundamental lemma for central elements in parahoric Hecke algebras, preprint, 2008; G. Pappas, M. Rapoport, Twisted loop groups and their affine flag varieties, Adv. Math. 219 (2008) 118–198; M. Rapoport, A guide to the reduction modulo p of Shimura varieties, Astérisque 298 (2005) 271–318].     

Ekedahl–Oort and Newton strata for Shimura varieties of PEL type

We study the Ekedahl–Oort stratification for good reductions of Shimura varieties of PEL type. These generalize the Ekedahl–Oort strata defined and studied by Oort for the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties (the “Siegel case”). They are parameterized by certain elements $w$ in the Weyl group of the reductive group of the Shimura datum. We show that for every such $w$ the corresponding Ekedahl–Oort stratum is smooth, quasi-affine, and of dimension $\ell (w)$ (and in particular non-empty). Some of these results have previously been obtained by Moonen, Vasiu, and the second author using different methods. We determine the closure relations of the strata. We give a group-theoretical definition of minimal Ekedahl–Oort strata generalizing Oort’s definition in the Siegel case and study the question whether each Newton stratum contains a minimal Ekedahl–Oort stratum. As an interesting application we determine which Newton strata are non-empty. This criterion proves conjectures by Fargues and by Rapoport generalizing a conjecture by Manin for the Siegel case. We give a necessary criterion when a given Ekedahl–Oort stratum and a given Newton stratum meet.     

Semistable and numerically effective principal (Higgs) bundles

We study Miyaoka-type semistability criteria for principal Higgs G-bundles E on complex projective manifolds of any dimension. We prove that E has the property of being semistable after pullback to any projective curve if and only if certain line bundles, obtained from some characters of the parabolic subgroups of G, are numerically effective. One also proves that these conditions are met for semistable principal Higgs bundles whose adjoint bundle has vanishing second Chern class.In a second part of the paper, we introduce notions of numerical effectiveness and numerical flatness for principal (Higgs) bundles, discussing their main properties. For (non-Higgs) principal bundles, we show that a numerically flat principal bundle admits a reduction to a Levi factor which has a flat Hermitian–Yang–Mills connection, and, as a consequence, that the cohomology ring of a numerically flat principal bundle with coefficients in R is trivial. To our knowledge this notion of numerical effectiveness is new even in the case of (non-Higgs) principal bundles.     

The topology of moduli spaces of group representations: The case of compact surface

Let G be a connected complex semisimple affine algebraic group, and let K be a maximal compact subgroup of G. Let X be a noncompact oriented surface. The main theorem of Florentino and Lawton (2009) [3] says that the moduli space of flat K-connections on X is a strong deformation retraction of the moduli space of flat G-connections on X. We prove that this statement fails whenever X is compact of genus at least two.     

Bounding Ext for modules for algebraic groups, finite groups and quantum groups

Given a finite root system Φ, we show that there is an integer c=c(Φ) such that , for any reductive algebraic group G with root system Φ and any irreducible rational G-modules L, L^′. There also is such a bound in the case of finite groups of Lie type, depending only on the root system and not on the underlying field. For quantum groups, a similar result holds for Extn, for any integer n?0, using a constant depending only on n and the root system. When L is the trivial module, the same result is proved in the algebraic group case, thus giving similar bounded properties, independent of characteristic, for algebraic and generic cohomology. (A similar result holds for any choice of L=L(λ), even allowing λ to vary, provided the p-adic expansion of lambda is limited to a fixed number of terms.) In particular, because of the interpretation of generic cohomology as a limit for underlying families of finite groups, the same boundedness properties hold asymptotically for finite groups of Lie type. The results both use, and have consequences for, Kazhdan–Lusztig polynomials. Appendix A proves a stable version, needed for small prime arguments, of Donkin's tilting module conjecture.     

Good reductions of Shimura varieties of Hodge type in arbitrary unramified mixed characteristic. Part I

We prove the existence of good smooth integral models of Shimura varieties of Hodge type in arbitrary unramified mixed characteristic (0, p). As a first application we provide a smooth solution (answer) to a conjecture (question) of Langlands for Shimura varieties of Hodge type. As a second application we prove the existence in arbitrary unramified mixed characteristic (0, p) of integral canonical models of projective Shimura varieties of Hodge type with respect to h-hyperspecial subgroups as pro-étale covers of Néron models; this forms progress towards the proof of conjectures of Milne and Reimann. Though the second application was known before in some cases, its proof is new and more of a principle.     

On fine fractal properties of generalized infinite Bernoulli convolutions

The paper is devoted to the investigation of generalized infinite Bernoulli convolutions, i.e., the distributions μξ of the following random variables: where ak are terms of a given positive convergent series; ξk are independent random variables taking values 0 and 1 with probabilities p0k and p1k correspondingly.We give (without any restriction on {an}) necessary and sufficient conditions for the topological support of ξ to be a nowhere dense set. Fractal properties of the topological support of ξ and fine fractal properties of the corresponding probability measure μξ itself are studied in details for the case where ak?rk:=ak+1+ak+2+? (i.e., rk−1?2rk) for all sufficiently large k. The family of minimal dimensional (in the sense of the Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimension) supports of μξ for the above mentioned case is also studied in details. We describe a series of sets (with additional structural properties) which play the role of minimal dimensional supports of generalized Bernoulli convolutions. We also show how a generalization of M. Cooper's dimensional results on symmetric Bernoulli convolutions can easily be derived from our results.     

On the characterization of complex Shimura varieties

In this paper we recall basic properties of complex Shimura varieties and show that they actually characterize them. This characterization immediately implies the explicit form of Kazhdan's theorem on the conjugation of Shimura varieties. It also implies the existence of unique equivariant models over the reflex field of Shimura varieties corresponding to adjoint groups and the existence of a p-adic uniformization of certain unitary Shimura varieties. In the appendix we give a modern formulation and a proof of Weil's descent theorem.     

On Drinfeld's universal formal group over thep-adic upper half plane

Conclusion All of our results are stated for 2-dimensional modules with action by the quaternion division algebra overQ _p . Drinfeld's results are true in much greater generality. We remark that our results generalize easily to the case of 2-dimensional modules with action by quaternion algebras over extensions ofQ _p by applying the theory of formal -modules. We suspect that Drinfeld's higher dimensional modules over are determined by formulae similar to that in Theorem 46, but with and generalized to moduli for higher dimensionalQ _p -subspaces of ; however, we have not investigated this in any detail.Although this work amplifies Drinfeld's original paper by supplying many details in certain cases, it is seriously limited in that it considers lifts of SFD modules to unramified rings only. The most interesting points in thep-adic upper half plane are the points defined over ramified rings, which reduce modp to the singular points on the special fiber. What happens there? We do not have a simple answer.Drinfeld's moduli for formal groups on thep-adic upper half plane is the basis for his proof that Shimura curves havep-adic uniformizations. In a later work, we hope to exploit improved versions of the techniques in this work to better understand the arithmetic of Shimura curves. In particular, in the course of work onp-adicL-functions, we have been led to construct certain p-adic periods associated to the cohomology of sheaves on Shimura curves which depend essentially on the existence of ap-adic uniformization. We hope to use Drinfeld's moduli to obtain a more natural construction of these periods in terms of the Gauss-Manin connection, and thereby to gain a better understanding of how they might come to appear in special values ofp-adicL-functions.This research was partially supported by an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship     

A new test for sphericity of the covariance matrix for high dimensional data

In this paper we propose a new test procedure for sphericity of the covariance matrix when the dimensionality, p, exceeds that of the sample size, N=n+1. Under the assumptions that (A) as p→∞ for i=1,…,16 and (B) p/n→c<∞ known as the concentration, a new statistic is developed utilizing the ratio of the fourth and second arithmetic means of the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix. The newly defined test has many desirable general asymptotic properties, such as normality and consistency when (n,p)→∞. Our simulation results show that the new test is comparable to, and in some cases more powerful than, the tests for sphericity in the current literature.