Plectic Galois action on CM points and connected components of Hilbert modular varieties

Abstract: We expand on Nekov\'a\v{r}'s construction of the plectic half transfer to define a plectic Galois action on Hilbert modular varieties. More precisely, we study in a unifying fashion Shimura varieties associated to groups that differ only in the centre from $R_{F/\mathbb{Q}}{\rm GL}_2$. We define plectic Galois actions on the CM points and on the set of connected components of these Shimura varieties, and show that these two actions are compatible. This extends the plectic conjecture of Nekov\'a\v{r}--Scholl.