The closed standard fundamental domain of the modular group is
Its vertical sides are paired by , and its circular sides by . It is a fundamental region with boundary identifications. To obtain exactly one representative of each orbit, use and, on , retain the half with . We will include both vertices when discussing the closure.
To prove existence of a representative, fix . Among primitive integer pairs choose one minimizing . The minimum exists: below any fixed bound, bounds , and then the real part bounds , so only finitely many pairs occur. Extend this primitive pair to the bottom row of a determinant-one integer matrix . Since
this makes the imaginary part maximal over the orbit. Translate by an integer to put the real part in . If the resulting point had modulus below one, inversion by would increase its imaginary part, a contradiction. Thus every orbit meets .
For uniqueness in the interior, note that throughout and that for every primitive pair. If , then . For , the minimum over integer is attained at or, at an endpoint, at a neighboring integer: and . All larger give a strict inequality. If , primitivity gives .
If two points in are equivalent, applying this inequality to the transformation and its inverse shows their imaginary parts are equal. For two interior points equality forces , hence an integer translation. Their real parts lie in an interval of length one, so the translation is zero. The only matrices acting trivially are . On the boundary, the equality cases give precisely the stated vertical and circular identifications. This establishes the fundamental-domain claim, including its boundary convention.
An elliptic point of a modular curve means a fixed point of a nonidentity element of the effective modular group ; the central matrix is not counted, since it acts trivially everywhere. The equality cases above show that the only such points in the closed region are
Their stabilizer subgroups in are
where
Indeed , , and their fractional-linear fixed-point equations give the listed points. To see that these are the full stabilizer subgroups, equality in leaves only bottom rows , with the extra neighboring rows at the vertices. The fixed-point equation then fixes the top row. This yields exactly four matrices at , six at each vertex, and just elsewhere. These are the elliptic stabilizers of the modular group. After passing to their effective orders are two and three. The two vertices represent the same elliptic orbit.
The modular group is acting on the complex upper half-plane by
Its central element acts trivially on points, so the effective group is . It is generated by and : the Euclidean algorithm reduces the bottom row of a matrix using these operations until it is a translation. The relations hold in the projective group.
A standard fundamental domain of the modular group is
To see that each orbit meets it, use . Choose a coprime integer pair minimizing the nonzero lattice modulus ; a modular matrix with that bottom row maximizes the imaginary part. Translate to the central strip. If the result had modulus below one, inversion would further increase its imaginary part, a contradiction. Interior representatives are unique: for a point in the interior, when . For use ; for use the strip and the strict unit-circle bound. Thus such a matrix lowers the imaginary part, which would contradict the same fact applied to its inverse if both representatives were in the interior. Matrices with are translations, and cannot move one interior strip point to another.
The vertical sides are identified by , and the circular halves by . The exceptional points with elliptic stabilizers of the modular group are represented by and , of projective stabilizer orders two and three. The rational boundary points together with infinity form one modular cusp orbit. In the hyperbolic metric the region has area .
A useful subgroup is the level-two principal congruence subgroup,
Reduction modulo two is onto , which has six elements and permutes the three nonzero vectors. Hence its kernel has index six, and the quotient is . In the projective action, is torsion-free. Indeed finite-order nonidentity modular elements have trace zero or ; matrices in have even trace, and trace zero is impossible because are odd while are even: with would imply . The subgroup has three modular cusp classes, represented by , each of width two. Parity of a primitive pair distinguishes these classes, and elementary level-two row operations reduce each class to its representative. Six translates of supply a fundamental region. Its compactified level-two modular curve is obtained by adjoining these three modular cusp points.
Invariant holomorphic functions arise naturally from theta constants. In the radian convention of Question 4, put , and define
Here . The theta-constant inversion and translation laws, obtained by Gaussian Poisson summation and by reindexing, interchange under with the common factor , leave fixed up to that factor, and under interchange while multiplying by . Together with the Jacobi abstruse identity , this gives
These transformations generate the six permutations of . In particular and fix ; with , these generate . Thus the modular lambda function is invariant under this subgroup, but not under the whole modular group. Its even theta constants do not vanish on , so it is holomorphic there and avoids . Near infinity, , with , which is the width-two modular cusp coordinate. The two transformation laws give modular cusp values one at zero and infinity at one, with the same simple local orders. Thus has exactly one simple pole on the compactified level-two quotient and no pole in the half-plane. A meromorphic map with one simple pole has degree one, so it identifies that quotient with the sphere and the open quotient with . This proves the coordinate assertion and describes all three modular cusps.
Symmetrizing this subgroup invariant produces a full modular-invariant function:
Substitution shows that this rational expression is unchanged by both and , hence by and . It is the Klein j-invariant. Its denominator does not vanish on , so it is holomorphic there; at the modular cusp it has , a simple pole in . It therefore remains nonconstant without being a bounded holomorphic function on the compactified quotient. In fact a holomorphic invariant extending holomorphically to the compactified modular curve would be constant by the maximum principle.
This also connects invariance to elliptic curves: changing an oriented basis of the lattice gives precisely the modular action after a rescaling. On the compact full modular quotient, has just the one simple modular cusp pole, so its map to the sphere has degree one. It therefore classifies the resulting homothety of complex lattices classes, while the modular lambda function retains a level-two labeling of the branch points in the Legendre model . Finally, a modular form of nonzero weight obeys a transformation law with a factor , not plain invariance; ratios of equal-weight forms instead give weight-zero modular functions. The distinction between forms, invariant holomorphic functions on the open half-plane, and their modular cusp behavior is essential to this construction.
The central matrices act identically on the complex upper half-plane, so the effective group is . Away from points with nontrivial effective stabilizer, properly discontinuous action supplies ordinary quotient-disc charts. At a fixed point , the coordinate identifies the stabilizer action with a rotation; its invariant coordinate is , where is the effective stabilizer order. These charts give the quotient its Riemann surface structure.
The elliptic stabilizers of the modular group occur only in the orbits of and . They have effective orders two and three. Consequently the analytic ramification indices of the map from the half-plane are
The stabilizers in have orders four and six, but the central factor does not double these indices.
All rational boundary points, including infinity, lie in one cusp of a modular group: a primitive column can be completed to a determinant-one integral matrix taking infinity to . The stabilizer of infinity is generated effectively by , and the coordinate identifies its high horodisc quotient with a punctured disc. Adding fills that disc. This constructs the compactified modular curve from the extended half-plane; it does not use the ordinary subspace topology on the rational boundary.
For compactness use the standard fundamental domain of the modular group. Its part below a fixed height is compact, since its imaginary part is at least . The part above , modulo translation and with the modular cusp added, is a closed disc in the -coordinate. Their images cover the quotient, so it is compact. The same argument with finitely many translates proves compactness for every finite-index subgroup.
Use the valence formula for the modular group: for a nonzero modular form of weight on ,
The sum contains one representative of each other modular group orbit of zeros. The orders are nonnegative because is holomorphic on the complex upper half-plane and at infinity. The half and third weights account for the elliptic stabilizers of the modular group.
In weight two, the transformation under at its fixed point gives . Thus any nonzero would have . The valence formula for the modular group would give a left side at least and a right side , which is impossible. Therefore the unheaded request is answered by vanishing of weight-two level-one modular forms:
Let and . The modular group acts on the complex upper half-plane by fractional linear transformations, and
For fixed , the values with primitive integer pairs have a positive minimum: the conditions bound both and , leaving finitely many pairs. By Bezout identity, a minimizing pair is the bottom row of a matrix in . Applying that matrix gives a point of maximal imaginary part in its orbit.
Translate it by a power of into . It must have modulus at least one, since otherwise would increase its imaginary part. If it is on the unit circle with negative real part, apply , which there changes to . This gives an element of the specified half-open standard fundamental domain of the modular group. It proves existence by reduction to the standard modular region.
For uniqueness, if lies in the closed standard region then and
for every primitive pair. If , this follows from ; if , it follows from . If , then uses , while gives
If both and lie in the region, applying this inequality to and forces their imaginary parts to agree, hence .
The equality cases describe every possible boundary identification. For the map is an integer translation; the half-open vertical strip retains one representative. For , equality requires , and the map is an inversion followed by an integer translation. Inversion exchanges the two halves of the circle, so retaining only the right half removes the duplication; the only translation that returns the exchanged endpoint is the one identifying the two corners. The remaining equality cases have , and , and give only those same corner identifications. Our region retains the right corner alone. Therefore , proving
The equality analysis also gives the elliptic stabilizers of the modular group. The central matrices fix every point. The point is fixed by , with , and the retained corner is fixed by , with . There are no other noncentral stabilizers, and the possible bottom rows in the equality cases give exactly
The corresponding stabilizer orders in are two, three and one; the requested group is , so the center must be included.