Congruences between modular forms given by the divided beta family in homotopy theory

Abstract

We characterize the 2-line of the p-local Adams-Novikov spectral sequence in terms of modular forms satisfying a certain explicit congruence condition for primes p > 3. We give a similar characterization of the 1-line, reinterpreting some earlier work of A. Baker and G. Laures. These results are then used to deduce that, for l a prime which generates the p-adic units, the spectrum Q(l) detects the alpha and beta families in the stable stems.