We show that for every finite set of prime numbers $S$, there are at most finitely many singular moduli that are $S$-units. The key new ingredient is that for every prime number $p$, singular moduli are $p$-adically disperse. We prove analogous results for the Weber modular functions, the $\lambda$-invariants and the McKay–Thompson series associated with the elements of the monster group. Finally, we also obtain that a modular function that specializes to infinitely many algebraic units at quadratic imaginary numbers must be a weak modular unit.

In this note, we will apply the results of Gross–Zagier, Gross–Kohnen–Zagier and their generalizations to give a short proof that the differences of singular moduli are not units. As a consequence, we obtain a result on isogenies between reductions of CM elliptic curves.

We show that two distinct singular moduli $j(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}),j(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}^{\prime })$, such that for some positive integers $m$ and $n$ the numbers $1,j(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F})^{m}$ and $j(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}^{\prime })^{n}$ are linearly dependent over $\mathbb{Q}$, generate the same number field of degree at most two. This completes a result of Riffaut [‘Equations with powers of singular moduli’, Int. J. Number Theory, to appear], who proved the above theorem except for two explicit pairs of exceptions consisting of numbers of degree three. The purpose of this article is to treat these two remaining cases.

We investigate divisibility properties of the traces and Hecke traces of singular moduli. In particular we prove that, if p is prime, these traces satisfy many congruences modulo powers of p which are described in terms of the factorization of p in imaginary quadratic fields. We also study generalizations of Lehner's classical congruences $j(z)| U_p\equiv 744 \pmod p$ (where $p\leq 11$ and j(z) is the usual modular invariant), and we investigate connections between class polynomials and supersingular polynomials in characteristic p.

We investigate the arithmetic and combinatorial significance of the values of the polynomials jn(x) defined by the q-expansion \[\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}j_n(x)q^n:=\frac{E_4(z)^2E_6(z)}{\Delta(z)}\cdot\frac{1}{j(z)-x}.\] They allow us to provide an explicit description of the action of the Ramanujan Theta-operator on modular forms. There are a substantial number of consequences for this result. We obtain recursive formulas for coefficients of modular forms, formulas for the infinite product exponents of modular forms, and new p-adic class number formulas.