The distribution of the first elementary divisor of the reductions of a generic Drinfeld module of arbitrary rank

Abstract

Let $\psi$ be a generic Drinfeld module of rank $r \geq 2$. We study the first elementary divisor $d_{1, \wp}(\psi)$ of the reduction of $\psi$ modulo a prime $\wp$, as $\wp$ varies. In particular, we prove the existence of the density of the primes $\wp$ for which $d_{1, \wp} (\psi)$ is fixed. For $r = 2$, we also study the second elementary divisor (the exponent) of the reduction of $\psi$ modulo $\wp$ and prove that, on average, it has a large norm. Our work is motivated by the study of J.-P. Serre of an elliptic curve analogue of Artin's Primitive Root Conjecture, and, moreover, by refinements to Serre's study developed by the first author and M. R. Murty.