On modular Galois representations modulo prime powers

We study modular Galois representations mod p^m. We show that there are three progressively weaker notions of modularity for a Galois representation mod p^m: we have named these `strongly', `weakly', and `dc-weakly' modular. Here, `dc' stands for `divided congruence' in the sense of Katz and Hida. These notions of modularity are relative to a fixed level M. Using results of Hida we display a `stripping-of-powers of p away from the level' type of result: A mod p^m strongly modular representation of some level Np^r is always dc-weakly modular of level N (here, N is a natural number not divisible by p). We also study eigenforms mod p^m corresponding to the above three notions. Assuming residual irreducibility, we utilize a theorem of Carayol to show that one can attach a Galois representation mod p^m to any `dc-weak' eigenform, and hence to any eigenform mod p^m in any of the three senses. We show that the three notions of modularity coincide when m=1 (as well as in other, particular cases), but not in general.