Moduli-friendly Eisenstein series over the p-adics and the computation of modular Galois representations

Abstract

We show how our p-adic method to compute Galois representations occurring in the torsion of Jacobians of algebraic curves can be adapted to modular curves. The main ingredient is the use of “moduli-friendly” Eisenstein series introduced by Makdisi, which allow us to evaluate modular forms at p-adic points of modular curves and dispenses us of the need for equations of modular curves and for q-expansion computations in the construction of models of modular Jacobians. The resulting algorithm compares very favourably to our complex-analytic method.