Annular Frobenius Classification of p-adic Stieltjes--Schwarzian Equations

Source abstract

We give explicit annular normal forms and classify Frobenius structures for $p$-adic Schwarzian equations defined by developing differentials. For a unit of the Robba ring, reduction of order expresses the associated module as a quadratic rank-one twist of a unipotent extension determined by the residue. Frobenius existence is characterized by a square-class condition. At odd primes, there are exactly four differential-module types, and a uniform dominant-monomial hypothesis gives a Frobenius formula in analytic families across the zero-residue locus. For rational nonintegral annular powers, we obtain a diagonal normal form and a congruence criterion at odd primes; both results hold at every prime when the unit factor is an explicit square. Applied to the reducible modular equations $θ^2y-\ell^2E_4y/144=0$, with $\gcd(\ell,6)=1$, this gives exactly two annular types at every prime and determines the least $s\geq1$ for which Frobenius under $q\mapsto q^{p^s}$ exists. The subfamily $\ell=12n+1$ has a single annular type. Heine--Stieltjes residue cancellation and nondegenerate Jacobi configurations provide explicit examples. We also prove an obstruction to constant projective Frobenius equivariance of Robba-ring developing maps.