$p$-adic families of automorphic forms in the $μ$-ordinary setting

Abstract: We develop a theory of $p$-adic automorphic forms on unitary groups that allows $p$-adic interpolation in families and holds for all primes $p$ that do not ramify in the reflex field $E$ of the associated unitary Shimura variety. If the ordinary locus is nonempty (a condition only met if $p$ splits completely in $E$), we recover Hida's theory of $p$-adic automorphic forms, which is defined over the ordinary locus. More generally, we work over the $\mu$-ordinary locus, which is open and dense. By eliminating the splitting condition on $p$, our framework should allow many results employing Hida's theory to extend to infinitely many more primes. We also provide a construction of $p$-adic families of automorphic forms that uses differential operators constructed in the paper. Our approach is to adapt the methods of Hida and Katz to the more general $\mu$-ordinary setting, while also building on papers of each author. Along the way, we encounter some unexpected challenges and subtleties that do not arise in the ordinary setting.