Modularity theorem
Clash Royale CLAN TAG#URR8PPP In mathematics, the modularity theorem (formerly called the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture or the Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture) states that elliptic curves over the field of rational numbers are related to modular forms. Andrew Wiles proved the modularity theorem for semistable elliptic curves, which was enough to imply Fermat's last theorem. Later, Christophe Breuil, Brian Conrad, Fred Diamond and Richard Taylor extended Wiles' techniques to prove the full modularity theorem in 2001. The modularity theorem is a special case of more general conjectures due to Robert Langlands. The Langlands program seeks to attach an automorphic form or automorphic representation (a suitable generalization of a modular form) to more general objects of arithmetic algebraic geometry, such as to every elliptic curve over a number field. Most cases of these extended conjectures have not yet been proved. However, Freitas, Le Hung & Siksek (2015) proved that elliptic curves defined over real quadratic fields are modular.
Contents
1 Statement
2 History
3 References
4 External links
Statement
The theorem states that any elliptic curve over Q can be obtained via a rational map with integer coefficients from the classical modular curve X0(N)displaystyle X_0(N)
The modularity theorem implies a closely related analytic statement: to an elliptic curve E over Q we may attach a corresponding L-series. The L-series is a Dirichlet series, commonly written
- L(E,s)=∑n=1∞anns.displaystyle L(E,s)=sum _n=1^infty frac a_nn^s.
The generating function of the coefficients andisplaystyle a_n
- f(E,q)=∑n=1∞anqn.displaystyle f(E,q)=sum _n=1^infty a_nq^n.
If we make the substitution
- q=e2πiτdisplaystyle q=e^2pi itau
we see that we have written the Fourier expansion of a function f(E,τ)displaystyle f(E,tau )
Some modular forms of weight two, in turn, correspond to holomorphic differentials for an elliptic curve. The Jacobian of the modular curve can (up to isogeny) be written as a product of irreducible Abelian varieties, corresponding to Hecke eigenforms of weight 2. The 1-dimensional factors are elliptic curves (there can also be higher-dimensional factors, so not all Hecke eigenforms correspond to rational elliptic curves). The curve obtained by finding the corresponding cusp form, and then constructing a curve from it, is isogenous to the original curve (but not, in general, isomorphic to it).
History
Yutaka Taniyama (1956) stated a preliminary (slightly incorrect) version of the conjecture at the 1955 international symposium on algebraic number theory in Tokyo and Nikkō. Goro Shimura and Taniyama worked on improving its rigor until 1957. André Weil (1967) rediscovered the conjecture, and showed that it would follow from the (conjectured) functional equations for some twisted L-series of the elliptic curve; this was the first serious evidence that the conjecture might be true. Weil also showed that the conductor of the elliptic curve should be the level of the corresponding modular form. The Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture became a part of the Langlands program.
The conjecture attracted considerable interest when Gerhard Frey (1986) suggested that the Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture implies Fermat's Last Theorem. He did this by attempting to show that any counterexample to Fermat's Last Theorem would imply the existence of at least one non-modular elliptic curve. This argument was completed when Jean-Pierre Serre (1987) identified a missing link (now known as the epsilon conjecture or Ribet's theorem) in Frey's original work, followed two years later by Ken Ribet (1990)'s completion of a proof of the epsilon conjecture.
Even after gaining serious attention, the Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture was seen by contemporary mathematicians as extraordinarily difficult to prove or perhaps even inaccessible to proof (Singh 1997, pp. 203–205, 223, 226). For example, Wiles' ex-supervisor John Coates states that it seemed "impossible to actually prove", and Ken Ribet considered himself "one of the vast majority of people who believed [it] was completely inaccessible".
Wiles (1995), with some help from Richard Taylor, proved the Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture for all semistable elliptic curves, which he used to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, and the full Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture was finally proved by Diamond (1996), Conrad, Diamond & Taylor (1999), and Breuil et al. (2001) who, building on Wiles' work, incrementally chipped away at the remaining cases until the full result was proved.
Once fully proven, the conjecture became known as the modularity theorem.
Several theorems in number theory similar to Fermat's Last Theorem follow from the modularity theorem. For example: no cube can be written as a sum of two coprime n-th powers, n ≥ 3. (The case n = 3 was already known by Euler.)
References
Breuil, Christophe; Conrad, Brian; Diamond, Fred; Taylor, Richard (2001), "On the modularity of elliptic curves over Q: wild 3-adic exercises", Journal of the American Mathematical Society, 14 (4): 843–939, doi:10.1090/S0894-0347-01-00370-8, ISSN 0894-0347, MR 1839918.mw-parser-output cite.citationfont-style:inherit.mw-parser-output qquotes:"""""""'""'".mw-parser-output code.cs1-codecolor:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registrationcolor:#555.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration spanborder-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-errordisplay:none;font-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-errorfont-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-formatfont-size:95%.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-leftpadding-left:0.2em.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-rightpadding-right:0.2em
Conrad, Brian; Diamond, Fred; Taylor, Richard (1999), "Modularity of certain potentially Barsotti-Tate Galois representations", Journal of the American Mathematical Society, 12 (2): 521–567, doi:10.1090/S0894-0347-99-00287-8, ISSN 0894-0347, MR 1639612
Cornell, Gary; Silverman, Joseph H.; Stevens, Glenn, eds. (1997), Modular forms and Fermat's last theorem, Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-94609-2, MR 1638473
Darmon, Henri (1999), "A proof of the full Shimura-Taniyama-Weil conjecture is announced" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 46 (11): 1397–1401, ISSN 0002-9920, MR 1723249Contains a gentle introduction to the theorem and an outline of the proof.
Diamond, Fred (1996), "On deformation rings and Hecke rings", Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, 144 (1): 137–166, doi:10.2307/2118586, ISSN 0003-486X, MR 1405946
Freitas, Nuno; Le Hung, Bao V.; Siksek, Samir (2015), "Elliptic curves over real quadratic fields are modular", Inventiones Mathematicae, 201 (1): 159–206, arXiv:1310.7088, Bibcode:2015InMat.201..159F, doi:10.1007/s00222-014-0550-z, ISSN 0020-9910, MR 3359051
Frey, Gerhard (1986), "Links between stable elliptic curves and certain Diophantine equations", Annales Universitatis Saraviensis. Series Mathematicae, 1 (1): iv+40, ISSN 0933-8268, MR 0853387
Mazur, Barry (1991), "Number theory as gadfly", The American Mathematical Monthly, 98 (7): 593–610, doi:10.2307/2324924, ISSN 0002-9890, MR 1121312 Discusses the Taniyama-Shimura-Weil conjecture 3 years before it was proven for infinitely many cases.
Ribet, Kenneth A. (1990), "On modular representations of Gal(Q/Q) arising from modular forms", Inventiones Mathematicae, 100 (2): 431–476, Bibcode:1990InMat.100..431R, doi:10.1007/BF01231195, ISSN 0020-9910, MR 1047143
Serre, Jean-Pierre (1987), "Sur les représentations modulaires de degré 2 de Gal(Q/Q)", Duke Mathematical Journal, 54 (1): 179–230, doi:10.1215/S0012-7094-87-05413-5, ISSN 0012-7094, MR 0885783
Shimura, Goro (1989), "Yutaka Taniyama and his time. Very personal recollections", The Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 21 (2): 186–196, doi:10.1112/blms/21.2.186, ISSN 0024-6093, MR 0976064
Singh, Simon (1997), Fermat's Last Theorem, ISBN 1-85702-521-0
Taniyama, Yutaka (1956), "Problem 12", Sugaku (in Japanese), 7: 269 English translation in (Shimura 1989, p. 194)
Taylor, Richard; Wiles, Andrew (1995), "Ring-theoretic properties of certain Hecke algebras", Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, 141 (3): 553–572, doi:10.2307/2118560, ISSN 0003-486X, MR 1333036
Weil, André (1967), "Über die Bestimmung Dirichletscher Reihen durch Funktionalgleichungen", Mathematische Annalen, 168: 149–156, doi:10.1007/BF01361551, ISSN 0025-5831, MR 0207658
Wiles, Andrew (1995), "Modular elliptic curves and Fermat's last theorem", Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, 141 (3): 443–551, doi:10.2307/2118559, ISSN 0003-486X, JSTOR 2118559, MR 1333035
Wiles, Andrew (1995), "Modular forms, elliptic curves, and Fermat's last theorem", Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vol. 1, 2 (Zürich, 1994), Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser, pp. 243–245, MR 1403925
External links
Darmon, H. (2001) [1994], "Shimura–Taniyama conjecture", in Hazewinkel, Michiel, Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. / Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 978-1-55608-010-4- Weisstein, Eric W. "Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture". MathWorld.