Congruences of Saito-Kurokawa lifts and denominators of central spinor L-values

Following Ryan and Tornaría, we prove that moduli of congruences of Hecke eigenvalues, between Saito–Kurokawa lifts and non-lifts (certain Siegel modular forms of genus 2), occur (squared) in denominators of central spinor L-values (divided by twists) for the non-lifts. This is conditional on Böcherer’s conjecture and its analogues and is viewed in the context of recent work of Furusawa, Morimoto and others. It requires a congruence of Fourier coefficients, which follows from a uniqueness assumption or can be proved in examples. We explain these factors in denominators via a close examination of the Bloch–Kato conjecture.