Expander graphs, gonality, and variation of Galois representations

Abstract

We show that families of coverings of an algebraic curve where the associated Cayley–Schreier graphs form an expander family exhibit strong forms of geometric growth. We then give many arithmetic applications of this general result, obtained by combining it with finiteness statements for rational points of curves with large gonality. In particular, we derive a number of results concerning the variation of Galois representations in one-parameter families of abelian varieties.