Special points on products of modular curves

Bas Edixhoven

Published 2003-02-12, updated 2004-10-26Version 2

We prove the Andre-Oort conjecture on special points of Shimura varieties for arbitrary products of modular curves, assuming the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis. More explicitly, this means the following. Let n be a positive integer, and let S be a subset of C^n (with C the complex numbers) consisting of points all of whose coordinates are j-invariants of elliptic curves with complex multiplications. Then we prove (under GRH) that the irreducible components of the Zariski closure of S are ``special subvarieties'', i.e., determined by isogeny conditions on coordinates and pairs of coordinates. A weaker variant is proved unconditionally.