We introduce and study the notion of a generalised Hecke orbit in a Shimura variety. We define a height function on such an orbit and study its properties. We obtain lower bounds for the sizes of Galois orbits of points in a generalised Hecke orbit in terms of this height function, assuming the ‘weakly adelic Mumford–Tate hypothesis’ and prove the generalised André–Pink–Zannier conjecture under this assumption, using Pila–Zannier strategy.

We prove the existence of $\mathrm {GSpin}_{2n}$-valued Galois representations corresponding to cohomological cuspidal automorphic representations of certain quasi-split forms of ${\mathrm {GSO}}_{2n}$ under the local hypotheses that there is a Steinberg component and that the archimedean parameters are regular for the standard representation. This is based on the cohomology of Shimura varieties of abelian type, of type $D^{\mathbb {H}}$, arising from forms of ${\mathrm {GSO}}_{2n}$. As an application, under similar hypotheses, we compute automorphic multiplicities, prove meromorphic continuation of (half) spin L-functions and improve on the construction of ${\mathrm {SO}}_{2n}$-valued Galois representations by removing the outer automorphism ambiguity.

In this paper, we propose a modified Kudla–Rapoport conjecture for the Krämer model of unitary Rapoport–Zink space at a ramified prime, which is a precise identity relating intersection numbers of special cycles to derivatives of Hermitian local density polynomials. We also introduce the notion of special difference cycles, which has surprisingly simple description. Combining this with induction formulas of Hermitian local density polynomials, we prove the modified Kudla–Rapoport conjecture when $n=3$. Our conjecture, combining with known results at inert and infinite primes, implies the arithmetic Siegel–Weil formula for all non-singular coefficients when the level structure of the corresponding unitary Shimura variety is defined by a self-dual lattice.

In this article we study integral models of Shimura varieties, called Pappas–Rapoport splitting model, for ramified P.E.L. Shimira data. We study the special fiber and some stratification of these models, in particular we show that these are smooth and the Rapoport locus and the $\mu $-ordinary locus are dense, under some condition on the ramification.

Consider the algebraic function $\Phi _{g,n}$ that assigns to a general $g$-dimensional abelian variety an $n$-torsion point. A question first posed by Klein asks: What is the minimal $d$ such that, after a rational change of variables, the function $\Phi _{g,n}$ can be written as an algebraic function of $d$ variables? Using techniques from the deformation theory of $p$-divisible groups and finite flat group schemes, we answer this question by computing the essential dimension and $p$-dimension of congruence covers of the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties. We apply this result to compute the essential $p$-dimension of congruence covers of the moduli space of genus $g$ curves, as well as its hyperelliptic locus, and of certain locally symmetric varieties. These results include cases where the locally symmetric variety $M$ is proper. As far as we know, these are the first examples of nontrivial lower bounds on the essential dimension of an unramified, nonabelian covering of a proper algebraic variety.

We consider the problem of defining an action of Hecke operators on the coherent cohomology of certain integral models of Shimura varieties. We formulate a general conjecture describing which Hecke operators should act integrally and solve the conjecture in certain cases. As a consequence, we obtain p-adic estimates of Satake parameters of certain nonregular self-dual automorphic representations of $\mathrm {GL}_n$ .

A key ingredient in the Taylor–Wiles proof of Fermat’s last theorem is the classical Ihara lemma, which is used to raise the modularity property between some congruent Galois representations. In their work on Sato and Tate, Clozel, Harris and Taylor proposed a generalisation of the Ihara lemma in higher dimension for some similitude groups. The main aim of this paper is to prove some new instances of this generalised Ihara lemma by considering some particular non-pseudo-Eisenstein maximal ideals of unramified Hecke algebras. As a consequence, we prove a level-raising statement.

We show that the mod p cohomology of a simple Shimura variety treated in Harris-Taylor’s book vanishes outside a certain nontrivial range after localizing at any non-Eisenstein ideal of the Hecke algebra. In cases of low dimensions, we show the vanishing outside the middle degree under a mild additional assumption.

We prove the test function conjecture of Kottwitz and the first named author for local models of Shimura varieties with parahoric level structure attached to Weil-restricted groups, as defined by B. Levin. Our result covers the (modified) local models attached to all connected reductive groups over $p$-adic local fields with $p\geqslant 5$. In addition, we give a self-contained study of relative affine Grassmannians and loop groups formed using general relative effective Cartier divisors in a relative curve over an arbitrary Noetherian affine scheme.

Using the axioms of He and Rapoport for the stratifications of Shimura varieties, we explain a result of Görtz, He, and Nie that the EKOR strata contained in the basic loci can be described as a disjoint union of Deligne–Lusztig varieties. In the special case of Siegel modular varieties, we compare their descriptions to that of Görtz and Yu for the supersingular Kottwitz-Rapoport strata and to the descriptions of Harashita and Hoeve for the supersingular Ekedahl–Oort strata.

We study special cycles on a Shimura variety of orthogonal type over a totally real field of degree d associated with a quadratic form in $n+2$ variables whose signature is $(n,2)$ at e real places and $(n+2,0)$ at the remaining $d-e$ real places for $1\leq e <d$. Recently, these cycles were constructed by Kudla and Rosu–Yott, and they proved that the generating series of special cycles in the cohomology group is a Hilbert-Siegel modular form of half integral weight. We prove that, assuming the Beilinson–Bloch conjecture on the injectivity of the higher Abel–Jacobi map, the generating series of special cycles of codimension er in the Chow group is a Hilbert–Siegel modular form of genus r and weight $1+n/2$. Our result is a generalization of Kudla’s modularity conjecture, solved by Yuan–Zhang–Zhang unconditionally when $e=1$.

Let $S$ be a Shimura variety with reflex field $E$. We prove that the action of $\text{Gal}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}}/E)$ on $S$ maps special points to special points and special subvarieties to special subvarieties. Furthermore, the Galois conjugates of a special point all have the same complexity (as defined in the theory of unlikely intersections). These results follow from Milne and Shih’s construction of canonical models of Shimura varieties, based on a conjecture of Langlands which was proved by Borovoi and Milne.

A general conjecture is stated on the cone of automorphic vector bundles admitting nonzero global sections on schemes endowed with a smooth, surjective morphism to a stack of $G$-zips of connected Hodge type; such schemes should include all Hodge-type Shimura varieties with hyperspecial level. We prove our conjecture for groups of type $A_{1}^{n}$, $C_{2}$, and $\mathbf{F}_{p}$-split groups of type $A_{2}$ (this includes all Hilbert–Blumenthal varieties and should also apply to Siegel modular $3$-folds and Picard modular surfaces). An example is given to show that our conjecture can fail for zip data not of connected Hodge type.

When $p$ is inert in the quadratic imaginary field $E$ and $m<n$, unitary Shimura varieties of signature $(n,m)$ and a hyperspecial level subgroup at $p$, carry a natural foliationof height 1 and rank $m^{2}$ in the tangent bundle of their special fiber $S$. We study this foliation and show that it acquires singularities at deep Ekedahl–Oort strata, but that these singularities are resolved if we pass to a natural smooth moduli problem $S^{\sharp }$, a successive blow-up of $S$. Over the ($\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}$-)ordinary locus we relate the foliation to Moonen’s generalized Serre–Tate coordinates. We study the quotient of $S^{\sharp }$ by the foliation, and identify it as the Zariski closure of the ordinary-étale locus in the special fiber $S_{0}(p)$ of a certain Shimura variety with parahoric level structure at $p$. As a result, we get that this ‘horizontal component’ of $S_{0}(p)$, as well as its multiplicative counterpart, are non-singular (formerly they were only known to be normal and Cohen–Macaulay). We study two kinds of integral manifolds of the foliation: unitary Shimura subvarieties of signature $(m,m)$, and a certain Ekedahl–Oort stratum that we denote $S_{\text{fol}}$. We conjecture that these are the only integral submanifolds.

In 2014, Pila and Tsimerman gave a proof of the Ax–Schanuel conjecture for the$j$-function and, with Mok, have recently announced a proof of its generalization to any (pure) Shimura variety. We refer to this generalization as the hyperbolic Ax–Schanuel conjecture. In this article, we show that the hyperbolic Ax–Schanuel conjecture can be used to reduce the Zilber–Pink conjecture for Shimura varieties to a problem of point counting. We further show that this point counting problem can be tackled in a number of cases using the Pila–Wilkie counting theorem and several arithmetic conjectures. Our methods are inspired by previous applications of the Pila–Zannier method and, in particular, the recent proof by Habegger and Pila of the Zilber–Pink conjecture for curves in abelian varieties.

Let $Y$ be an abelian variety over a subfield $k\subset \mathbb{C}$ that is of finite type over $\mathbb{Q}$. We prove that if the Mumford–Tate conjecture for $Y$ is true, then also some refined integral and adelic conjectures due to Serre are true for $Y$. In particular, if a certain Hodge-maximality condition is satisfied, we obtain an adelic open image theorem for the Galois representation on the (full) Tate module of $Y$. We also obtain an (unconditional) adelic open image theorem for K3 surfaces. These results are special cases of a more general statement for the image of a natural adelic representation of the fundamental group of a Shimura variety.

Let $M$ be the Shimura variety associated to the group of spinor similitudes of a quadratic space over $\mathbb{Q}$ of signature $(n,2)$. We prove a conjecture of Bruinier and Yang, relating the arithmetic intersection multiplicities of special divisors and complex multiplication points on $M$ to the central derivatives of certain $L$-functions. Each such $L$-function is the Rankin–Selberg convolution associated with a cusp form of half-integral weight $n/2+1$, and the weight $n/2$ theta series of a positive definite quadratic space of rank $n$. When $n=1$ the Shimura variety $M$ is a classical quaternionic Shimura curve, and our result is a variant of the Gross–Zagier theorem on heights of Heegner points.

We determine the Galois representations inside the $\ell$-adic cohomology of some quaternionic and related unitary Shimura varieties at ramified places. The main results generalize the previous works of Reimann and Kottwitz in this setting to arbitrary levels at $p$, and confirm the expected description of the cohomology due to Langlands and Kottwitz.

We determine the Galois representations inside the $\ell$-adic cohomology of some unitary Shimura varieties at split places where they admit uniformization by finite products of Drinfeld upper half spaces. Our main results confirm Langlands–Kottwitz’s description of the cohomology of Shimura varieties in new cases.

We extend the group-theoretic construction of local models of Pappas and Zhu [Local models of Shimura varieties and a conjecture of Kottwitz, Invent. Math. 194 (2013), 147–254] to the case of groups obtained by Weil restriction along a possibly wildly ramified extension. This completes the construction of local models for all reductive groups when $p\geqslant 5$. We show that the local models are normal with special fiber reduced and study the monodromy action on the sheaves of nearby cycles. As a consequence, we prove a conjecture of Kottwitz that the semi-simple trace of Frobenius gives a central function in the parahoric Hecke algebra. We also introduce a notion of splitting model and use this to study the inertial action in the case of an unramified group.