The filled Julia set of a Drinfeld module and uniform bounds for torsion

Abstract

If M is a Drinfeld module over a local function field L, we may view M as a dynamical system, and consider its filled Julia set J. If J^0 is the connected component of the identity, relative to the Berkovich topology, we give a characterisation of the component module J/J^0 which is analogous to the Kodaira-Neron characterisation of the special fibre of a Neron model of an elliptic curve over a non-archimedean field. In particular, if L is the fraction field of a discrete valuation ring, then the component module is finite, and moreover trivial in the case of good reduction. In the context of global function fields, the filled Julia set may be considered as an object over the ring of finite adeles. In this setting we formulate a conjecture about the structure of the (finite) component module which, if true, would imply Poonen's Uniform Boundedness Conjecture for torsion on Drinfeld modules of a given rank over a given global function field. Finally, we prove this conjecture for certain families of Drinfeld modules, obtaining uniform bounds on torsion in some special cases.