arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Francois Brunault.
In this article we develop a new method for relating Mahler measures of three-variable polynomials that define elliptic modular surfaces to L-values of modular forms. Using an idea of Deninger, we express the Mahler measure as a Deligne period of the surface and then apply the first author's extension of the Rogers-Zudilin method to Kuga-Sato varieties to arrive at an L-value.
We study the special value at 2 of L-functions of modular forms of weight 2 on congruence subgroups of the modular group. We prove an explicit version of Beilinson's theorem for the modular curve X_1(N). When N is prime, we deduce that the target space of Beilinson's regulator map is generated by the images of Milnor symbols associated to modular units of X_1(N). We also suggest a reformulation of Zagier's conjecture on L(E,2) for the jacobian J_1(N) of X_1(N), where E is an elliptic curve of conductor N. In this direction we define an analogue of the elliptic dilogarithm for any jacobian J : it is a function R_J from the complex points of J to a finite-dimensional vector space. In the case J=J_1(N), we establish a link between the aforementioned L-values and the function R_J evaluated at \Q-rational points of the cuspidal subgroup of J.