Eisenstein degeneration of Beilinson--Kato classes and circular units

Abstract

The aim of this note is to explore the Euler system of Beilinson--Kato elements in families passing through the critical $p$-stabilization of an Eisenstein series attached to two Dirichlet characters $(ψ,τ)$. In this context, we establish an explicit connection with the system of circular units, utilizing suitable factorization formulas in a situation where several of the $p$-adic $L$-functions vanish. In that regard, our main results may be seen as an Euler system incarnation of the factorization formula of Bellaïche and Dasgupta. One of the most significant aspects is that, depending on the parity of $ψ$ and $τ$, different phenomena arise; while some can be addressed with our methods, others pose new questions. Finally, we discuss analogous results in the framework of Beilinson--Flach classes.