Finding Galois representations corresponding to certain Hecke eigenclasses

Abstract

In 1992, Avner Ash and Mark McConnell presented computational evidence of a connection between three-dimensional Galois representations and certain arithmetic cohomology classes. For some examples they were unable to determine the attached representation. For several Hecke eigenclasses (including one for which Ash and McConnell did not find the Galois representation), we find a Galois representation which appears to be attached and show strong evidence for the uniqueness of this representation. The techniques that we use to find defining polynomials for the Galois representations include a targeted Hunter search, class field theory, and elliptic curves.