On the ramification of modular parametrizations at the cusps

Abstract

We investigate the ramification of modular parametrizations of elliptic curves over Q at the cusps. We prove that if the modular form associated to the elliptic curve has minimal level among its twists by Dirichlet characters, then the modular parametrization is unramified at the cusps. The proof uses Bushnell's formula for the Godement-Jacquet local constant of a cuspidal automorphic representation of GL(2). We also report on numerical computations indicating that in general, the ramification index at a cusp seems to be a divisor of 24.