Distinguishing Siegel modular forms

Abstract

Let $f$ and $f'$ be genus $2$ cuspidal Siegel paramodular newforms. We prove that if their Hecke eigenvalues $a_p$ and $a_p'$ satisfy a non-trivial polynomial relation $P(a_p, a_p') = 0$ for a set of primes $p$ of positive density, then $f$ is a scalar multiple of a quadratic twist of $f'$. This result extends the strong multiplicity one theorem, which handles the case $P(x,y) = x - y$, to arbitrary polynomial relations. Our proof analyses the image of the product Galois representation attached to the pair $(f, f')$: we show that this image is as large as possible, unless $f$ is a twist of $f'$. Our results also apply to elliptic modular forms. They therefore provide a unified method for distinguishing both elliptic and Siegel modular forms based on their Hecke data, including their Hecke eigenvalues, Satake parameters, Sato--Tate angles, and the coefficients of their $L$-functions. We apply our methods to recover and generalise a range of existing results and to prove new ones in both the elliptic and Siegel settings.