Modularity of certain mod $p^n$ Galois representations

Abstract

For a rational prime $p \geq 3$ and an integer $n \geq 2$, we study the modularity of continuous 2-dimensional mod $p^n$ Galois representations of $\Gal(\bar{\Q}/\Q)$ whose residual representations are odd and absolutely irreducible. Under suitable hypotheses on the local structure of these representations and the size of their images we use deformation theory to construct characteristic 0 lifts. We then invoke modularity lifting results to prove that these lifts are modular. As an application, we show that certain unramified mod $p^n$ Galois representations arise from modular forms of weight $p^{n-1}(p-1)+1$.