On period spaces for p-divisible groups

Abstract

In their book Rapoport and Zink constructed rigid analytic period spaces for Fontaine's filtered isocrystals, and period morphisms from moduli spaces of p-divisible groups to some of these period spaces. We determine the image of these period morphisms, thereby contributing to a question of Grothendieck. We give examples showing that only in rare cases the image is all of the Rapoport-Zink period space.