Stability of Hodge bundles and a numerical characterization of Shimura varieties

Abstract

Consider a family f:A --> U of g-dimensional abelian varieties over a quasiprojective manifold U. Suppose that the induced map from U to the moduli scheme of polarized abelian varieties is generically finite and that there is a projective manifold Y, containing U as the complement of a normal crossing divisor S, such that the sheaf of logarithmic one forms is nef and that its determinant is ample with respect to U. We characterize whether $U$ is a Shimura variety by numerical data attached to the variation of Hodge structures, rather than by properties of the map from U to the moduli scheme or by the existence of CM points. More precisely, we show that U is a Shimura variety, if and only if two conditions hold. First, each irreducible local subsystem V of the complex weight one variation of Hodge structures is either unitary or satisfies the Arakelov equality. Secondly, for each factor M in the universal cover of U whose tangent bundle behaves like the one of a complex ball, an iterated Kodaira-Spencer map associated with V has minimal possible length in the direction of M.

65 pages, AMSLaTeX. Some more corrections and supplements. We reformulated large parts of Sections 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. In particular we filled a gap in the proof of 6.4., corrected several mistakes in Section 7 and added some references