Cyclic covers of the projective line, their jacobians and endomorphisms

Abstract

We study the endomorphism ring $End(J(C))$ of the complex jacobian $J(C)$ of a curve $y^p=f(x)$ where $p$ is an odd prime and $f(x)$ is a polynomial with complex coefficiens of degree $n>4$ and without multiple roots. Assume that all the coefficients of $f$ lie in a (sub)field $K$ and the Galois group of $f$ over $K$ is either the full symmetric group $S_n$ or the alternating group $A_n$. Then we prove that $End(J(C))$ is the ring of integers in the in the $p$th cyclotomic field, if $p$ is a Fermat prime (e.g., $p=3,5,17,257$). Similar results for $p=2$ (the case of hyperelliptic curves) were obtained by the author in Math. Res. Lett. 7(2000), 123--132.