Let K be an imaginary quadratic field different from $\open{Q}(\sqrt {-1})$ and $\open{Q}(\sqrt {-3})$ . For a positive integer N, let KN be the ray class field of K modulo $N {\cal O}_K$ . By using the congruence subgroup ± Γ1(N) of SL2(ℤ), we construct an extended form class group whose operation is basically the Dirichlet composition, and explicitly show that this group is isomorphic to the Galois group Gal(KN/K). We also present an algorithm to find all distinct form classes and show how to multiply two form classes. As an application, we describe Gal(KNab/K) in terms of these extended form class groups for which KNab is the maximal abelian extension of K unramified outside prime ideals dividing $N{\cal O}_K$ .

We show that every modular form on Γ0(2n) (n ⩾ 2) can be expressed as a sum of eta-quotients, which is a partial answer to Ono's problem. Furthermore, we construct a primitive generator of the ring class field of the order of conductor 4N (N ⩾ 1) in an imaginary quadratic field in terms of the special value of a certain eta-quotient.

We show that a weakly holomorphic modular function can be written as a sum of modular units of higher level. Furthermore, we find a necessary and sufficient condition for a meromorphic Siegel modular function of degree g to have neither a zero nor a pole on a certain subset of the Siegel upper half-space .