Irrationality of certain p-adic periods for small p

Frank Calegari

Published 2004-08-16Version 1

Following Apery's proof of the irrationality of zeta(3), Beukers found an elegant reinterpretation of Apery's arguments using modular forms. We show how Beukers arguments can be adapted to a p-adic setting. In this context, certain functional equations arising from Eichler integrals are replaced by the notion of overconvergent p-adic modular forms, and the periods themselves arise not as coefficients of period polynomials but as constant terms of p-adic Eisenstein series. We prove that the analogue of zeta(3) is irrational for p = 2 and 3, as well as the 2-adic analogue of Catalan's constant.