NON-COMMUTATIVE p-ADIC L-FUNCTIONS FOR SUPERSINGULAR PRIMESANTONIO LEI

Abstract. Let E/Q be an elliptic curve with good supersingular reduction at p with ap (E) = 0. We givea conjecture on the existence of analytic plus and minus p-adic L-functions of E over the Zp -cyclotomic
extension of a finite Galois extension of Q where p is unramified. Under some technical conditions, we adopt
the method of Bouganis and Venjakob for p-ordinary CM elliptic curves to construct such functions for aparticular non-abelian extension.

1. Introduction
Let E/Q be an elliptic curve with good ordinary reduction at an odd prime p. Coates et al. [CFK+ 05,
CH01] have recently developed the framework of the Iwasawa theory of E over a p-adic Lie extension F of
Q that contains the Zp -cyclotomic extension Q∞ . Let G = Gal(F/Q) and Γ = Gal(Q∞ /Q). It is predictedthat there exists a p-adic L-function LG,E ∈ K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ), where ΛO (G)S ∗ is an appropriate localisation ofan Iwasawa algebra of G and LG,E interpolates the complex L-values of E in the following sense. For all
Artin representations ρ of G, LG,E is expected to satisfy(1)

LG,E (ρ) =ep (ρ)
Pp (ρ, u−1 )LR (E, ρ∨ , 1)
×× d+ (ρ) d− (ρ) .
∨
−1
f
(ρ)
Pp (ρ , w ) ΩupΩ−+

Here, ep denotes the local epsilon factor at p, u and w are respectively the p-adic unit and non-unit roots of
the quadratic X 2 − ap (E)X + p, Pp (?, X) is the polynomial describing the Euler factor of ? at p and R is theset consisting of the prime p and all primes at which E has multiplicative reduction. We shall review someof the notation in §2. The main conjecture predicts that such a p-adic L-function, should it exist, generates
the characteristic ideal of the dual Selmer group X(E/F), which is conjectured to lie in the MH (G)-category(see §2.4 below).
The existence of LG,E would generalise the work of Mazur and Swinnerton-Dyer [MSD74], where they
constructed an element LΓ,E ∈ Λ(Γ) that interpolates the L-values of E twisted by finite characters of Γ.
More precisely, if χ is a character on Γ with conductor pn > 1, thenLΓ,E (χ) =τ (χ) L(E, χ−1 , 1)
×
,
un
Ω+

where τ (χ) denotes the Gauss sum of χ.
When E has good supersingular reduction, no such element exists. Instead, Amice and Vélu [AV75]
constructed two admissible p-adic L-functions LuE,Γ and Lw
E,Γ , one for each of the two roots, u and w,
2
to X − ap (E)X + p. Even though they have similar interpolating properties as their counterpart in theordinary case, they do not lie in Λ(Γ). Pollack [Pol03] resolved this by decomposing LuE,Γ and Lw
E,Γ into
linear combinations of two elements L±
∈
Λ(Γ)
when
a
(E)
=
0
and
it
has
been
generalised
to
the
case
p
E,Γ
where ap (E) 6= 0 by Sprung [Spr09]. We shall concentrate on the former case in this paper. Pollack’s p-adic
L-functions exhibit the following interpolating properties. Let χ be a character on Γ of conductor pn > 1.
If n is even,(2)L+Γ,E (χ) =τ (χ)
L(E, χ−1 , 1)×,
ω + (χ)Ω+

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. 11R23 (primary), 11F67 (secondary).
Key words and phrases. non-commutative Iwasawa theory; elliptic curves; supersingular primes; p-adic L-functions.
The author is supported by a CRM-ISM fellowship.
1

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ANTONIO LEI

whereas if n is odd,
(3)L−
Γ,E (χ) =τ (χ)
L(E, χ−1 , 1)×.
ω − (χ)Ω+

Here, ω + (χ) and ω − (χ) are some non-zero factors that come from the plus and minus logarithms log± definedin [Pol03]. It is shown in op. cit. that L±
Γ,E are uniquely determined by (2) and (3) respectively. We shallreview some of the details of Pollack’s work in §3.1.
The main goal of this paper is to formulate a conjecture on the existence of two elements L±
G,E ∈K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ) with interpolating properties similar to (2) and (3) for G = Gal(F/Q), where F is the Zp cyclotomic extension of a finite Galois extension of Q in which p is unramified. Let ρ be an irreducible Artin
representation of G with fp (ρ) = n. We define in §3.2 the factors ω + (ρ) and ω − (ρ), depending on the parity
of n. We then go on to predict that there exist L±
G,E ∈ K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ) that satisfy(4)L+
G,E (ρ) =LR (E, ρ∨ , 1)
ep (ρ)
× d+ (ρ) d− (ρ)+ω (ρ) ΩΩ+−

if n is even, whereas for odd n,(5)L−
G,E (ρ) =ep (ρ)LR (E, ρ∨ , 1)×.
ω − (ρ) Ωd+ (ρ) Ωd− (ρ)+−

Here R is the set of primes as defined in the ordinary case above. Note that the Euler factors at p are
trivial for the representations which we consider, which explains why they are not present in our conjectural−
formulae. Roughly speaking, L+
G,E and LG,E are each interpolating the L-values of E twisted by “half” of
all irreducible Artin representations of G. Despite these seemingly weaker properties, we show that, as in
the ordinary case, if L±
G,E exist, they are uniquely determined by (4) and (5) respectively as elements ofK1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ) modulo the kernel of a determinant map.
Kobayashi [Kob03] defined the plus and minus Selmer groups Sel±p (E/Q∞ ) for E over Q∞ and formulatea main conjecture predicting that the characteristic ideals of their Pontryagin duals X ± (E/Q∞ ) should be
generated by L±
Γ,E (this has been proved by Pollack and Rubin [PR04] when E has complex multiplication).
In [LZ11], we have generalised Kobayashi’s construction to arbitrary p-adic Lie extensions. Therefore,
analogous to the ordinary case, the existence of L±
G,E would allow us to formulate a main conjecture forthese plus and minus Selmer groups, which relates the characteristic ideals of X ± (E/F) to L±
G,E . See §3.3
for details.
In [BV10], Bouganis and Venjakob proved the existence of the p-adic L-function LG,E ∈ K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ )that satisfies (1), where E is an elliptic curve with complex multiplication that has good ordinary reduction
at p and G = Gal(Q(E[p∞ ])/Q) assuming that the Selmer group satisfies the MH (G)-conjecture. Their
construction makes use of the 2-variable p-adic L-function of Yager [Yag82], which does not exists in the
supersingular case. We have nonetheless managed to adopt their method, together with some of the ideas
from [KPZ10], to construct two elements L±
G,E that satisfy (4) and (5) respectively under some technicalassumptions when E is an elliptic curve with complex multiplication by K which has good supersingularreduction at p and G is the Galois group of the extension of Q by Q∞ · F , where F is an abelian extensionof K in which p is unramified.
Note that G could
be abelian, but there do exist examples for which this is√√
not the case, e.g. K = Q( −3) and F = K( 3 2). The details of our construction are given in §4.
Acknowledgement
The idea of this paper was originally developed when the author was a member of Monash University. He
is extremely grateful for many helpful discussions with Daniel Delbourgo and Lloyd Peters on the subject
while he was there. He is also indebted to David Loeffler for pointing out a few mistakes in an earlier versionof this paper and to Henri Darmon and Alex Bartel for answering many of his questions. Finally, the author
would like to thank the anonymous referee for suggestions that help improving the paper.

NON-COMMUTATIVE p-ADIC L-FUNCTIONS FOR SUPERSINGULAR PRIMES

3

2. Notation and setup
2.1. p-adic Lie extension. Throughout this paper, p is an odd prime. If K is a field of characteristic 0,
either local or global, GK denotes its absolute Galois group, κ the p-cyclotomic character on GK and OK
the ring of integers of K. We write c for the complex conjugation in GQ .
We let K∞ denote the Zp -cyclotomic extension of K. The Galois group Gal(K∞ /K) is written as ΓK .
When K = Q, we simply write Γ for ΓQ . We fix a topological generator γ of Γ.
From now on, we fix a finite Galois extension F of Q with Galois group H. We assume that p is unramified
in F . Let F = F∞ . Our assumption on F implies that F ∩ Q∞ = Q. Hence, F∞ /Q is Galois. We write G
for its Galois group. ThenG∼
= H × Γ,(6)

which allows us to view both Γ = ΓQ and H as subgroups of G (e.g. G could be the Galois group studiedin [Har10], where H is the group of 4 × 4 upper-triangular unipotent matrices over Fp ). We fix a family of
subgroups of H, written as {Ui }i∈I , such that the following is true.
Condition 2.1. For all irreducible representations ρ of H, the trace of ρ is equal to a Z-linear combinatonof representations of the form IndH
Ui χρ,i where i ∈ I and χρ,i is an one-dimensional character on Ui .
Remark 2.2. Note that such a family exists by Brauer’s theorem on induced characters.
By (6), for all irreducible representations ρ of G, there exists an one-dimensional character ρ0 of Γ suchthat the trace of ρ is equal to a Z-linear combinaton of representations of the form
IndGUi ×Γ (χρ,i ⊗ ρ0 ) ∼= IndGUi χρ,i ⊗ ρ0
where i ∈ I and χρ,i is an one-dimensional character on Ui .
We write Vi = [Ui , Ui ] for all i ∈ I.
2.2. Iwasawa algebras and power series. Given a finite extension K of Qp and a p-adic Lie group G,
ΛOK (G) denotes the Iwasawa algebra of G over OK , i.e.
lim OK [G/N ],←−N

where the inverse limit runs over the open normal subgroups of G. When K = Qp (so OK = Zp ), we suppress
Zp from the notation and write Λ(G) for ΛZp (G). We denote ΛOK (G) ⊗OK K by ΛK (G).
Let r ∈ R≥0 . We defineX|cn |pHr =cn X n ∈ Cp [[X]] : sup r < ∞ ,


n
n
n≥0

where | · |p is the p-adic norm on Cp such that |p|p = p−1 . We write Hr (Γ) = {f (γ − 1) : f ∈ Hr }. In otherwords, the elements of Hr (respectively Hr (Γ)) are the power series in X (respectively γ − 1) over Cp withgrowth rate O(logrp ).
Given a subfield K of Cp , we write Hr,K = Hr ∩ K[[X]] and similarly for Hr,K (Γ). In particular,
H0,K (Γ) =PΛK (Γ).
If h = n≥0 cn (γ − 1)n ∈ Hr (Γ) and λ ∈ Homcts (Γ, C×p ), we writeXh(λ) =cn (λ(γ) − 1)n ∈ Cp .
n≥0More generally, if ρ is an Artin representation on Γ, then ρ may be decomposed into a finite sum of characterson Γ, say
r
M
ρ∼
χi .
=
i=1

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ANTONIO LEI

We then writeh(ρ) =rYh(χi ).

i=1

2.3. Artin representations. Let V be a finite dimensional vector space over C. If ρ : GQ → GLC (V ) is an
Artin representation, we write d(ρ) (respectively d± (ρ)) for the dimension of V (respectively the subspace ofV on which the complex conjugation acts as ±1). The contragredient representation of ρ is denoted by ρ∨ .
We now review the definition of the local epsilon factor ep (ρ) = ep (ρ|GQp ) at p (see [Tat79, §3] and [DD07,§6.10] for details). It depends on a choice of Haar measure and an additive character on Qp . In this article,
we take the canonical measure µ on Qp with µ(Zp ) = 1 and the additive character that sends ap−n tone2aπi/p for a ∈ Zp . It is multiplicative in the sense that ep (ρ1 ⊕ ρ2 ) = ep (ρ1 )ep (ρ2 ), so it is enough to define
ep (ρ) for irreducible ρ.
If ρ is one-dimensional, we may factor ρ|GQp into ρ0 ρ0 , where ρ0 is an unramified character and ρ0 is a
Dirichlet character of conductor pn . In this case, the epsilon factor is defined to be
ep (ρ) = ρ0 (p)n × τ (ρ0 ),where τ (ρ0 ) denotes the Gauss sum of ρ0 . If ρ = IndQ
F (χ) for some character χ on GF , where F is a number
field, we may define ep (χ) for each place p of F above p in a similar way. The epsilon factor of ρ at p is thendefined to be
Y ep (χ).
ep (ρ) = ep (IndQ
F (1))
ep (1)
p|p2.4. A canonical Ore set. We recall the definition of an Ore set S from [CFK+ 05]. Let O be the ring ofinteger of a finite extension of Qp . If G and H are as in §2.1, we define
S(O) = {f ∈ ΛO (G) : ΛO (G)/ΛO (G)f is a finitely generated ΛO (H)-module}∗

and S(O) = ∪n≥0 pn S(O). We write ΛO (G)S ∗ for the localisation of ΛO (G) at S(O)∗ .
Let Ui be the subgroups as fixed in Section 2.1. For each i ∈ I, we have a natural map
θi : K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ) → K1 (ΛO (Ui × Γ)S ∗ ) → K1 (ΛO (Ui /Vi × Γ)S ∗ ) = ΛO (Ui /Vi × Γ)×S∗ .
Let Irrp (G) be the additive group generated by isomorphic classes of p-adic representations of G. Thereis a determinant map

Det : K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ) → Maps Irrp (G), Qp ∪ {∞}x

7→ (ρ 7→ x(ρ)).

We write MH (G) for the category of all finitely generated Λ(G)-modules which are S ∗ (Zp )-torsion. Thereis a connecting map∂G : K1 (Λ(G)S ∗ ) → K0 (MH (G)).
It is surjective when G has no p-torsion. Given an element M in MH (G), a characteristic element for M isany ξM ∈ K1 (Λ(G)S ∗ ) such that ∂G (ξM ) = [M ].
3. Conjectures
3.1. Pollack’s plus and minus p-adic L-functions. We first recall Pollack’s construction of plus andminus p-adic L-functions for the Zp -cyclotomic extension of Q in [Pol03]. The plus and minus logarithms
are defined as follows.
Definition 3.1. Let r ≥ 0 be an integer, define∞rY
1 Y Φ2n (κ(γ)−s γ)
,
log+
=
r
p n=1
p
s=0
log−
r

=

∞
r
Y
1 Y Φ2n−1 (κ(γ)−s γ)
s=0

p n=1

p

,

NON-COMMUTATIVE p-ADIC L-FUNCTIONS FOR SUPERSINGULAR PRIMES

5

where Φm denotes the pm -cyclotomic polynomial.
sLemma 3.2. Let λ be a character on Γ. Then log+r (λ) = 0 if and only if λ = κ θ, where s ∈ [0, r] and θ is−a Dirichlet character whose conductor is an odd power of p. Similarly, logr (λ) = 0 if and only if λ = κs θ,
where s ∈ [0, r] and θ is a Dirichlet character whose conductor is an even power of p.

Proof. [Pol03, Lemma 4.1].

−
Remark 3.3. Both log+r and logr are elements of Hr/2,Qp (Γ) as given by [Pol03, Lemma 4.5].
P
Let f =
an q n be a normalised eigen-newform of weight k ≥ 2, level N and Nebentypus character .
Throughout, we assume p - N . We write Fp (f ) for the completion of the coefficient field Q(an : n ≥ 1) at aprime above p. Let α be a root of X 2 − ap X + (p)pk−1 = 0 with h := ordp (α) < k − 1. Amice and Vélu[AV75] constructed Lf,α ∈ Hh,Fp (f ) (Γ) (written as LαΓ,E in the introduction) with the following interpolating
properties. For all integers j ∈ [0, k − 2] and Dirichlet characters θ of conductor pn ,Lp,α (θκj ) = eα (θ, j) ×

(7)pn(j+1) j!
L(f, θ−1 , j + 1)
×,
τ (θ−1 )(−2πi)jΩδfwhere δ = (−1)j , τ (θ−1 ) denotes the Gauss sum of θ−1 ,
θ−1 (p)(p)pk−2−jθ(p)pj11−eα (θ, j) = n 1 −αααjand Ω±
f are some choice of periods. Moreover, Lf,α is uniquely determined by its values at θκ as given by(7).

Remark 3.4. We are only considering the Zp -cyclotomic extension here, rather than the whole extension
by p-power roots of unity as studied in [AV75]. In particular, θ(−1) is always 1.
±
Theorem 3.5. Let f and α be as above with ap = 0. There exist L±f ∈ ΛFp (f ) (Γ) (written as LΓ,E in the
introduction) such that−−+
Lf,α = log+
k−1 Lf + α logk−1 Lf .

Proof. This is the main result of [Pol03].



In particular, if α1 and α2 are the two roots to X 2 + (p)pk−1 = 0, we have α1 = −α2 and
(8)

L+
f

=

(9)

L−
f

=

Lp,α1 + Lp,α2,2 log+k−1
Lp,α2 − Lp,α1.
(α2 − α1 ) log−
k−1−
Therefore, we can readily combine (7) with (8) and (9) to obtain the interpolating formulae of L+
f and Lf
respectively as given below.

Lemma 3.6. Let j ∈ [0, k − 2] be an integer and θ a Dirichlet conductor pn > 1. Write δ as in (7). If n iseven, thenpn(j+1) j!
L(f, θ−1 , j + 1)
1
j
×
×
,
L+
(θκ
)
=
f
j
τ (θ−1 )(−2πi)jΩδf(−(p)pk−1 )n/2 log+
k−1 (θχ )whereas θκj (L+f ) = 0 if n = 1. For all odd n, we havejL−f (θκ ) =1pn(j+1) j!

××jτ (θ−1 )(−2πi)j(−(p)pk−1 )(n+1)/2 log−
k−1 (θχ )L(f, θ−1 , j + 1)
.
Ωδf

6

ANTONIO LEI

Moreover,jL+f (κ )=j!
L(f, j + 1)
1 − p−1
×
×
,
+
j
j
Ωδf
logk−1 (χ ) (−2πi)jL−f (κ )=L(f, j + 1)j!
p−j−1 + (p)−1 pj−k+1
×
×
.
−
j
j
(−2πi)Ωδflogk−1 (χ )Definition 3.7. Let θ be a Dirichlet character of conductor pn . For even n, defineω + (θ) = (−p)n/2 log+
1 (θ).
For odd n, defineω − (θ) = (−p)(n+1)/2 log−
1 (θ).
For a weight 2 modular form, we have the following simplified version of Lemma 3.6.
Lemma 3.8. Assume that f is of weight 2. Let θ be a Dirichlet conductor pn > 1. If n is even, thenL+f (θ) =L(f, θ−1 , 1)
τ (θ)
×
,
(p)n/2 ω + (θ)Ω+
fwhereas L+
f (θ) = 0 if n = 1. For all odd n, we haveL−f (θ) =τ (θ)
(p)(n+1)/2 ω − (θ)×

L(f, θ−1 , 1).
Ω+fMoreover,L(f, 1)
,
Ω+
f

L+
f (1)

=

(p − 1) ×

L−
f (1)

=

(1 + (p)−1 ) ×

L(f, 1).
Ω+
f

Proof. Recall from Remark 3.4 that θ(−1) = 1, so we have τ (θ)τ (θ−1 ) = θ(−1)pn = pn . The result is then
immediate from Lemma 3.6. See also [Kob03, (3.4)-(3.7)].

3.2. Conjectural analytic p-adic L-functions. In this section, we fix an elliptic curve E defined over Q.
We assume that E has good supersingular reduction at p with ap (E) = 0. As in the introduction, we write
R for the set consisting of the prime p and the primes where E has multiplicative reduction. Let Ω+ andΩ− denote the real and complex periods of E respectively. Let F and G be as defined in Section 2.1.
Definition 3.9. Let ρ be an Artin representation on G. We say that ρ is of even (respectively odd) Γconductor if, via (6),ρ∼
= ρ0 ⊗ ρ0for some representation ρ0 of H and some one-dimensional character ρ0 6= 1 of Γ whose conductor is aneven (respectively odd) power of p.
Remark 3.10. By (6), an irreducible representation ρ of G is of the form ρ0 ⊗ ρ0 where ρ0 is an irreducible
representation of H and ρ0 is an one-dimensional character of Γ. In particular, if ρ0 6= 1, it has either evenor odd Γ-conductor. Moreover, all Artin representations of G that have even (respectively odd) Γ-conductors
are direct sums of such irreducible representations.
Lemma 3.11. Let ρ be an Artin representation on G. If ρ is of even Γ-conductor, then
ω + (ρ|Γ ) = ω + (ρ0 )d(V ) 6= 0.
Similarly, if ρ is of odd Γ-conductor,
ω − (ρ|Γ ) = ω − (ρ0 )d(V ) 6= 0.

NON-COMMUTATIVE p-ADIC L-FUNCTIONS FOR SUPERSINGULAR PRIMES

7

Proof. If ρ is of even or odd Γ-conductor, we haveρ|Γ ∼= (ρ0 )⊕d(V ) .
0
By definition, ω ± (ρ0 ) and log±
1 (ρ ) differ by a power of p. Hence the result by Lemma 3.2.



As in Definition 3.7, we make the following definition to simplify our notation.
Definition 3.12. Let ρ be an Artin representation on G that is of even Γ-conductor, we writeω + (ρ) = ω + (ρ|Γ ),which is non-zero by Lemma 3.11. If on the other hand ρ is of odd Γ-conductor, we writeω − (ρ) = ω − (ρ|Γ ),which again is non-zero by Lemma 3.11.
We now formulate our conjecture on the existence of plus and minus p-adic L-functions of E over G.
Conjecture 3.13. There exist two elements L±
G,E ∈ K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ) for the ring of integer O of some finite
unramified extension of Qp such that LνG,E (ρ) 6= ∞ and(10)

LνG,E (ρ) =ep (ρ)LR (E, ρ∨ , 1)
× d+ (ρ) d− (ρ)νω (ρ) ΩΩ+−

for all Artin representations ρ on G that has even (respectively odd) Γ-conductor with ν = + (respectively
ν = −).
This is analogous to [CFK+ 05, Conjecture 5.7].
Remark 3.14. Remark 3.10 implies that we might assume that the representations considered in the statement of Conjecture 3.13 are irreducible.
We now show that despite having much weaker interpolating properties than their counterpart in thegood ordinary case, (10) uniquely determines L±
G,E modulo ker(Det).
Theorem 3.15. If Conjecture 3.13 holds, L±
G,E are uniquely determined by (10) modulo the kernel of Det.
Proof. For all ξ ∈ K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ) and monomial representations ρ on G, with ρ = IndGUi ×Γ χρ , we haveDet(ξ)(ρ) = ξ(ρ) = θi (ξ)(χρ ).
Hence, by Condition 2.1, Det(ξ) is uniquely determined by its image under the mapwords,!
Y
ker(Det) = kerθi .

Qi∈I θi (ξ).

In otheri∈I

Therefore, it suffices to show that (10) uniquely determines an element in!
Y
K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ )/ ker
θi .
i∈I
0

A character χ on Ui /Vi × Γ decomposes into χ0 ⊗ χ , where χ0 = χ|Ui /Vi and χ0 = χ|Γ . Therefore, by
Weierstrass’ preparation theorem, an element in ΛO (Ui /Vi × Γ)×S ∗ is uniquely determined by its values atcharacters of the form χ0 ⊗ χ0 for all χ0 and an infinite number of χ0 . Artin representations ρ induced
from characters on Ui × Γ that have even (or odd) Γ-conductor provide such a set of characters χρ because
Definition 3.9 does not impose any restrictions on χ0 and χ0 can send γ to an infinite number of primitiveroots of unity. The values predicted by (10) therefore uniquely determine θi (L±G,E ) for all i ∈ I, hence theresult.


8

ANTONIO LEI

3.3. Main conjecture. In [LZ11], we have defined the signed Selmer groups Sel±p (E/F), which are sub±groups of the usual Selmer group Selp (E/F). Let X (E/F) be their respective Pontryagin duals. We
conjecture that the following holds.
Conjecture 3.16. The dual Selmer groups X ± (E/F) belong to the category MH (G).
This corresponds to [CFK+ 05, Conjecture 5.1]. If Conjecture 3.16 holds and G contains no p-torsion, thenthere exist characteristic elements ξX ± (E/F ) ∈ K1 (Λ(G)S ∗ ) as discussed in § 2.4. We may then formulatea main conjecture that relates these characteristic elements to the conjectural analytic p-adic L-functions
predicted by Conjecture 3.13.
Conjecture 3.17 (Main conjecture). Let i : K1 (Λ(G)S ∗ ) → K1 (ΛO (G)S ∗ ) be the natural homomorphism.
Assume that G does not contain an element of order p and both Conjectures 3.13 and 3.16 hold. ThenL±
G,E ≡ i(ξX ± (E/F ) )mod i(K1 (ΛO (G))).

This is analogous to [CFK+ 05, Conjecture 5.8].
4. A special caseIn this section, we assume that our elliptic curve E has complex multiplication by OK , where K is an
imaginary quadratic extension of Q. If ψ is a character on GK , we write ψ c for the character that sends gto ψ(cgc−1 ).
We recall that a Grossencharacter of K is simply a continuous homomorphism φ : CK → C× , where CK
is the idele class group of K. It has complex L-functionY
L(φ, s) =(1 − φ(v)N (v)−s )−1 ,v

where the product runs through the finite places v of K at which φ is unramified, φ(v) is the image of theuniformiser of Kv under φ and N (v) is the norm of v. We say that φ is of type (m, n) for some m, n ∈ Z if
the restriction of φ to the archimedean part C× of CK is of the form z 7→ z m z̄ n . By Class Field Theory, we
may equally view φ as a character on the Galois group GK .
Since we assume that E has complex multiplication, we have R = {p}. Moreover, there exist a Grossencharacter φ be of type (−1, 0) over K and a weight 2 modular form fφ such that
L(E, s) = L(φ, s) = L(fφ , s).
cThen L(E/K, s) = L(φ, s)L(φ , s). We continue to assume that E has good supersingular reduction at p.
This implies that p is inert in K and ap (E) is automatically 0.
Let F be a finite abelian extension of K in which p is unramified. Then, K∞ ∩ F = K. Moreover, F∞ /K
is abelian andGal(F∞ /K) ∼= Gal(F/K) × Gal(K∞ /K).
Let A = Gal(F/K), G = Gal(F∞ /K) and ∆ = Gal(K/Q). We further assume that F∞ /Q is Galois andwrite G = Gal(F∞ /Q). Then
∼ ∆ n G.
(11)
G=
As remarked in the introduction, G can be either abelian or non-abelian, depending on whether ∆ acts on
G trivially.
For the rest of this section, we shall show under some technical conditions that there exist two elements
L±
G,E ∈ K1 (ΛOFA (G)S ∗ ) satisfying the interpolating properties predicted by Conjecture 3.13 for some finite
extension FA of Qp . Let us briefly outline our strategy here. In [BV10], Bouganis and Venjakob constructeda non-commutative p-adic L-function over the extension Q(E[p∞ ])/Q for a p-ordinary elliptic curve withcomplex multiplication by OK . They made use of the 2-variable p-adic L-function of Yager [Yag82] for theextension Q(E[p∞ ])/K and consider its image in K1 (ΛO (Gal(Q(E[p∞ ])/Q))) under a natural map, whichturns out to satisfy (1) up to some correction factor LΩ . In the supersingular case, a corresponding 2-variable
p-adic L-function has not yet been constructed. We instead construct plus and minus p-adic L-functions forNON-COMMUTATIVE p-ADIC L-FUNCTIONS FOR SUPERSINGULAR PRIMES

9the extension F∞ /K using ideas from [KPZ10]. Once this is done, we can apply the machineries developed
by Bouganis and Venjakob to construct our desired elements for the extension F∞ /Q.
4.1. Analytic p-adic L-functions. Let η be an one-dimensional character on A. We write Fη for the fieldQp (η(g) : g ∈ A). Note that φη is once again a Grossencharacter of type (−1, 0) over K. Hence, by [Rib77,
Theorem 3.4], there exists a CM modular form fφη such that L(fφη , s) = L(φη, s). Its conductor is coprime
to p by our assumption on F , so the plus and minus p-adic L-functions L±
fφη ∈ ΛFη (Γ) exist, as given by±
Theorem 3.5. Note that the periods Ωfφη are not unique, but we may choose Ω+fφη to be Ω+ for all η by thefollowing lemma.
+
×Lemma 4.1. For any choice of Ω+fφη , there exists a constant C ∈ Fη such that CΩ+ = Ωfφη .

Proof. Given a modular form f , let Lf be the Q-vector space generated by the L-values L(f, χ, 1) where χruns through the set of Dirichlet characters.
By the algebraicity property of the periods, the lemma would follow from the inclusion
Lfφη ⊂ Fη · Lfφ ,which is a consequence of the Fourier inversion formula for η and Birch’s lemma (c.f. [Har87, §4]).



Under our choice of periods, we define the following.
Definition 4.2. Let ν ∈ {+, −} and δ = 0 if ν = +, whereas δ = 1/2 if ν = −. DefineX
LνG,φ =eη · η(p)δ Lνfφη̄ ∈ ΛFA (Γ)[A],
η∈Â
1/2

where FA = ∪η∈Â Fη (η(p)) and eη is the idempotent |A|−1Pg∈A η̄(g)g.

∼
If we identify ΓK with Γ, we can treat L±
G,φ as elements of ΛFA (A × ΓK ) = ΛFA (G). We shall do so fromnow on without further notice.
Lemma 4.3. Let χ be a one-dimensional character on G with χ0 = χ|A and χ0 = χ|ΓK with conductorpn > 1, thenχ0 (p)n/2 τ (χ0 ) L(φ, χ, 1)LνG,φ (χ) =×ω ν (χ0 )Ω+
where ν = + if n is even and ν = − if n is odd.
Proof. For any η ∈ Â, χ(eη ) = 0 if χ0 6= η and χ(eη ) = 1 otherwise. This implies
LνG,φ (χ) = χ0 (p)δ Lνfφχ (χ0 ).
0Since fφχ0 is of weight 2 and its Nebentypus character takes value χ0 (p) at p, Lemma 3.8 implies thatLνfφχ (χ0 )0= χ0 (p)δ ×=τ (χ0 )
χ0 (p)b(n+1)/2c ω ν (χ0 )×L(φχ0 , χ0 , 1)Ω+φ

χ0 (p)b(n+1)/2c−δ τ (χ0 ) L(φχ0 , χ0 , 1)×
ω ν (χ0 )Ω+

for the appropriate parity of n. But b(n + 1)/2c − δ = n/2, so we are done.

Let us recall from [Pol03, Corollary 5.11] and [Lei11, Lemma 6.5] that L±
fφη 6= 0 for all η ∈ Â. It therefore±
makes sense to talk about the µ-invariants of Lfφη . We from now on assume that the following is true.
Technical assumption. Under our choice of periods, the µ-invariant of L±
fφη is independent of η ∈ Â (butmay depend on the sign ±).
Lemma 4.4. Under our technical assumption, LνG,φ ∈ ΛOFA (G)×
S ∗ = K1 (ΛOFA (G)S ∗ ).

10

ANTONIO LEIProof. Since we assume that L±
fφη have the same µ-invariant, there exists an integer n (depends on the sign±) such that
ΛOFA (G)/ΛOFA (G)pn L±fφη
is finitely generated over Zp , and hence over OFA [A]. In particular,∗
pn L±
fφη ∈ S(OFA ) ,which proves the lemma.

Let ι be the inclusion mapι : ΛOFA (G)S ∗ ) → ΛOFA (G)S ∗ .
This induces a mapι∗ : K1 (ΛOFA (G)S ∗ ) → K1 (ΛOFA (G)S ∗ ).
Thanks to Lemma 4.4, we may now make the following definition.
Definition 4.5. Under the notation above, we define


±
∗
L±
:=
(ι)
L
∗
G,φ
G,φ ∈ K1 (ΛOFA (G)S ).
±The following lemma allows us to relate the interpolating properties of L±
G,φ to those of LG,φ .

Lemma 4.6. For all Artin representations ρ of G, one hasG±L±G,φ (ρ) = LG,φ ResG ρ .
Proof. This follows from the same proof as [BV10, Lemma 2.9].

Proposition 4.7. Let ρ be an irreducible Artin representation on G. Then
L(E, ρ∨ , 1)
ep (ρ)
×,LνG,φ (ρ) = ν
d(ρ)
ω (ρ)
Ω+
where ν = + (respectively ν = −) if the ρ has even (respectively odd) Γ-conductor.
Proof. By [Ser78, §8.2] and (11), all irreducible Artin representations ρ of G are either one-dimensional or
isomorphic IndGG χ for some one-dimensional character χ on G with χ 6= χc (the latter case occurs if andonly if G is non-abelian).
If ρ is one-dimensional, write χ = ResGG (ρ) and we factor χ into χ0 ⊗χ0 as in Lemma 4.3. We have χ0 = ρ|Γ .
Let pn be the conductor of χ0 . Via the identification of Γ with ΓK , we see that ρ has even (respectively odd)
Γ-conductor if and only if n is even (respectively odd). Therefore, we can combine Lemmas 4.3 and 4.6 todeduce that
χ0 (p)n/2 τ (χ0 ) L(φ, χ, 1)(12)
LνG,φ (ρ) =×.
ω ν (χ0 )Ω+
By Frobenius reciprocity, we have(13)

L(φ, χ, 1) = L(E, ρ, 1) = L(E, ρ∨ , 1).

Let ρ0 be the unramified part of ρ|GQp . Then, ep (ρ) = ρ0 (p)n τ (χ0 ) by definition. But Kp /Qp is an unramified
extension of degree 2, so ρ0 (p)2 = χ0 (p). Hence, ep (ρ) = χ0 (p)n/2 τ (χ0 ). Together with (12) and (13), we
can therefore conclude that
ep (ρ)
L(E, ρ∨ , 1)LνG,φ (ρ) = ν
×
ω (ρ)
Ω+
as required.
We now study the case when ρ is 2-dimensional, should it occur. In this case, we have ρ = IndGG χ forsome character χ on G. Then ResGG ρ = χ ⊕ χc . As before, we decompose χ and χc into χ0 ⊗ χ0 and χc0 ⊗ (χc )0
respectively. As we assume that ρ has even or odd Γ-conductor, we have χ0 = (χc )0 6= 1. In particular,(14)

ρ|Γ = χ0 ⊕ (χc )0 = (χ0 )⊕2 .

NON-COMMUTATIVE p-ADIC L-FUNCTIONS FOR SUPERSINGULAR PRIMES

11

We can once again apply Lemmas 4.3 and 4.6 to deduce that
LνG,φ (ρ)= LνG,φ (χ)LνG,φ (χc )2τ (χ0 )L(φ, χ, 1)L(φ, χc , 1)cn/2
= (χ0 χ0 (p))×,×ω ν (χ0 )Ω2+where ν depends on the parity of the Γ-conductor of ρ as in the statement of the proposition.
As in the one-dimensional case, Frobenius reciprocity implies that
L(φ, χ, 1)L(φ, χc , 1) = L(φ, χ ⊕ χc , 1) = L(E, ρ∨ , 1).
By our assumption on the non-ramification of p in F , ρ|GQp in fact decomposes into the direct sum of two
one-dimensional characters, say ρ1 and ρ2 . On restricting to GKp , they coincide with χ and χc . Hence, as
n/2
above, we may deduce that ep (ρ1 ) and ep (ρ2 ) are given by χ0 (p)τ (χ0 ) and χc0 (p)n/2 τ (χ0 ). This impliesthat
ep (ρ) = ep (ρ1 )ep (ρ2 ) = χ0 χc0 (p)n/2 (τ (χ0 ))2 .
Putting all these together, we conclude that
LνG,φ (ρ)

L(E, ρ∨ , 1)
ep (ρ)×(ω ν (χ0 ))2Ω2+
ep (ρ)
L(E, ρ∨ , 1)
×
,
ν
ω (ρ)
Ω2+

=
=

where the second equality follows from (14).



We can now define our plus and minus p-adic L-functions of E over G.
Ω+1−c×Definition 4.8. Let LΩ = 1+c
2 + Ω− × 2 ∈ Λ(G) (c.f. [BV10, Lemma 2.10]). We define±L±
G,E := LG,φ LΩ ∈ K1 (ΛOFA (G)S ∗ ).

Theorem 4.9. Let ρ be an irreducible Artin representation of G. ThenLνG,E (ρ) =L(E, ρ∨ , 1)
ep (ρ),×ω ν (ρ) Ωd+ (ρ) Ωd− (ρ)+−

where ν = + (respectively ν = −) if the ρ has even (respectively odd) Γ-conductor.
Proof. If ρ is 1-dimensional, then d+ (ρ) = 1 and LΩ (ρ) = 1. Hence, by Proposition 4.7,
LνG,E (ρ)=

LνG,φ (ρ)=

ep (ρ)
L(E, ρ∨ , 1)
×
,
ν
d(ρ)
ω (ρ)
Ω+

where ν corresponds to the parity of the Γ-conductor of ρ as usual. If ρ is 2-dimensional, then d+ (ρ) =d− (ρ) = 1 and LΩ (ρ) = Ω+ /Ω− . Therefore, we deduce from Proposition 4.7 that
LνG,E (ρ)===

LνG,φ (ρ)
ep (ρ)
L(E, ρ∨ , 1) Ω+××ω ν (ρ)Ω2+Ω−∨
ep (ρ)
L(E, ρ , 1)
×
.
ν
ω (ρ)
Ω+ Ω−


Remark 4.10. As remarked above, R = {p} because E has complex multiplication. Since the Euler factor of L(E, ρ∨ , 1) at p is trivial, Theorem 4.9, together with Remark 3.14, give an affirmative answer toConjecture 3.13 in this particular setting.

12

ANTONIO LEI

4.2. Remarks on the main conjecture. Since p is unramified in F , p splits into distinct primes p1 · · · pd
in F . Results in [LZ11, §4] imply that the signed Selmer groups Sel±p (E/F∞ ) can be explicitly described asfollows. For n ≥ 0, let!
dM
H 1 (Fpi ,n , E[p∞ ])±,Selp (E/Fn ) = ker Selp (E/Fn ) →E(Fpi ,n )± ⊗ Qp /Zp
i=1
where

E(Fpi ,n )± = x ∈ E(Fpi ,n ) : Trn/m+1 (x) ∈ E(Fpi ,m )∀m ∈ Sn± .
Here, Trn/m+1 denotes the trace map E(Fpi ,n ) → E(Fpi ,m+1 ) with respect to the group law on E andSn+=[0, n − 1] ∩ 2Z;

Sn−=[0, n − 1] ∩ (2Z + 1).

Then we haveSel±
lim Sel±(E/Fn ).
p (E/F∞ ) = −→ pNote that this is the same definition as given in [KPZ10], where p is assumed to split completely in F .
The main conjecture (Conjecture 3.17) relates our p-adic L-functions L±
G,E to the dual Selmer groups±
X (E/F∞ ). In [BV10, §2], it has been shown that the main conjecture for the extension Q(E[p∞ ])/Q
follows from the MH (G)-conjecture and the 2-variable main conjecture in the ordinary case. Unfortunately,
we do not have the corresponding 2-variable main conjecture in our current setting, so we cannot adopt themethod of Bouganis and Venjakob directly here.
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13

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Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Burnside Hall, McGill University, Montreal QC, Canada H3A 0B9E-mail address: antonio.lei@mcgill.ca