Hypergeometric functions over F_p and relations to elliptic curves and modular forms

Abstract

For primes p congruent to 1 mod 12, we present an explicit relation between the traces of Frobenius on a family of elliptic curves with j-invariant 1728/t and values of a particular 2F1-hypergeometric function over F_p. Additionally, we determine a formula for traces of Hecke operators T_k(p) on spaces of cusp forms of weight k and level 1 in terms of the same traces of Frobenius. This leads to formulas for Ramanujan's tau-function in terms of hypergeometric functions.

26 pages