Congruences involving the $U_{\ell}$ operator for weakly holomorphic modular forms

Abstract

Let $\lambda$ be an integer, and $f(z)=\sum_{n\gg-\infty} a(n)q^n$ be a weakly holomorphic modular form of weight $\lambda+\frac 12$ on $\Gamma_0(4)$ with integral coefficients. Let $\ell\geq 5$ be a prime. Assume that the constant term $a(0)$ is not zero modulo $\ell$. Further, assume that, for some positive integer $m$, the Fourier expansion of $(f|U_{\ell^m})(z) = \sum_{n=0}^\infty b(n)q^n$ has the form \[ (f|U_{\ell^m})(z) \equiv b(0) + \sum_{i=1}^{t}\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} b(d_i n^2) q^{d_i n^2} \pmod{\ell}, \] where $d_1, \ldots, d_t$ are square-free positive integers, and the operator $U_\ell$ on formal power series is defined by \[ \left( \sum_{n=0}^\infty a(n)q^n \right) \bigg| U_\ell = \sum_{n=0}^\infty a(\ell n)q^n. \] Then, $\lambda \equiv 0 \pmod{\frac{\ell-1}{2}}$. Moreover, if $\tilde{f}$ denotes the coefficient-wise reduction of $f$ modulo $\ell$, then we have \[ \biggl\{ \lim_{m \rightarrow \infty} \tilde{f}|U_{\ell^{2m}}, \lim_{m \rightarrow \infty} \tilde{f}|U_{\ell^{2m+1}} \biggr\} = \biggl\{ a(0)\theta(z), a(0)\theta^\ell(z) \in \mathbb{F}_{\ell}[[q]] \biggr\}, \] where $\theta(z)$ is the Jacobi theta function defined by $\theta(z) = \sum_{n\in\mathbb{Z}} q^{n^2}$. By using this result, we obtain the distribution of the Fourier coefficients of weakly holomorphic modular forms in congruence classes. This applies to the congruence properties for traces of singular moduli.