Nicolas Mascot

Introduction

Hello, and welcome! I am an Ussher assistant professor in number theory and cryptography at the School of Mathematics of Trinity College Dublin. Here is my CV.

You can email me by clicking here.

Research

• Moduli-friendly Eisenstein series over the p-adics and the computation of modular Galois representations
  arXiv preprint, April 2020.
  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 points and dispenses us of the need for equations of modular curves and for q-expansion computations. The resulting algorithm compares very favourably to the complex-analytic method.
  The source code (still at an experimental stage) is available in a GitHub repository.


• A Prym variety with everywhere good reduction over Q(√61) (joint with Jeroen Sijsling and John Voight)
  arXiv preprint, August 2019.
  We compute an equation for a modular abelian surface A that has everywhere good reduction over the quadratic field K=Q(√61) and that does not admit a principal polarization over K.


• Explicit computation of a Galois representation attached to an eigenform over SL(3) from the H² étale of a surface
  arXiv preprint, October 2018 (updated June 2019).
  We sketch a method to compute mod ℓ Galois representations contained in the H2 étale of surfaces. We apply this method to the case of a representation with values in GL(3,9) attached to an eigenform over a congruence subgroup of SL(3). We obtain in particular a polynomial with Galois group isomorphic to the simple group PSU(3,9) and ramified at 2 and 3 only.
  Data are available here.


• Hensel-lifting torsion points on Jacobians and Galois representations
  Published in Math. Comp. 89.
  We show how to compute any Galois representation appearing in the torsion of the Jacobian of a given curve, given the characteristic polynomial of the Frobenius at one prime.
  The source code is available in a GitHub repository.


• Rigorous computation of the endomorphism ring of a Jacobian (joint with Edgar Costa, Jeroen Sijsling, and John Voight)
  Published in Math. Comp. 88.
  We describe several improvements to algorithms for the rigorous computation of the endomorphism ring of the Jacobian of a curve defined over a number field.


• Modular Galois representation data available for download
  These data were computed and certified thanks to the algorithms described in the three articles below.


• Companion forms and explicit computation of PGL₂ number fields with very little ramification
  Published in Journal of Algebra 509.
  This article shows how to generalise the algorithms to compute Galois representations attached to modular forms to the case of forms of any level. As an application, we compute representations attached to forms which are supersingular or admit a companion form, and obtain previously unknown number fields of Galois group PGL₂(F_ℓ) and record-breaking low root-discriminants. Finally, we establish a formula to predict the discriminant of such fields.


• Certification of modular Galois representations
  Published in Math. Comp. 87.
  This article presents methods to certify efficiently and rigorously that the output of the algorithms described in the article below is correct.


• Computing modular Galois representations
  Published in Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo, Volume 62, No 3, December 2013.
  This article describes how to explicitly compute modular Galois representations associated with a modular newform, and studies the related problem of computing the coefficients of this newform modulo a small prime.


• My PhD thesis, Computing modular Galois representations

Talks

• A method based on complex geometry to compute Galois representations attached to modular forms, and a methdod to certify the correctness of the result


• Explicit computation of lightly-ramified number fields with Galois group PGL₂(F_ℓ) through representations attached to companion or supersingular modular forms


• A p-adic method to compute Galois representations afforded in the ℓ-torsion of Jacobians of curves, with applications to higher étale cohomology spaces of higher-dimensional varieties

• The Jacobian variety of a compact Riemann surface: study of the Riemann relations between the periods of a compact Riemann surface, and statement and proof of the Abel-Jacobi theorem


• Khinchin's constant, an amusing phenomenon about continued fractions statistics in ergodic number theory

Teaching

• Hilary term 2019-20: Fields, rings, and modules
• Michaelmas term 2019-20: Galois theory

• In 2018-2019:
• Math 261 - Number theory
• In 2017-2018:
• Math 261 - Number theory
• Math 345 - Algebraic number theory
• From 2008 to 2010:
• "Colles" questions (oral examinations) that I gave from 2008 to 2010 (in French)