Heights of points on elliptic curves over $\mathbb Q$
Michael Griffin, Ken Ono, Wei-Lun Tsai
备注：
Comments. 1) This paper was published as Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 149 (2021), 5093-5100. 2) After the paper was published, we discovered a typographical error in the example after Theorem 1.1. The number 0.043 should be 0.035
In this note we obtain effective lower bounds for the canonical heights of non-torsion points on $E(\mathbb{Q})$ by making use of suitable elliptic curve ideal class pairings $$Ψ_{E,-D}: E(\mathbb{Q})\times E_{-D}(\mathbb{Q})\mapsto \mathrm{CL}(-D).$$ In terms of the class number $H(-D)$ and $T_E(-D)$, a logarithmic function in $D$, we prove $$ \widehat{h}(P)> \frac{|E_{\mathrm{tor}}(\mathbb{Q})|^2}{\left( H(-D)+ |E_{\mathrm{tor}}(\mathbb{Q})|\right)^2}\cdot T_E(-D). $$
A 1979 letter from John Tate to Jean-Pierre Serre in which the author describes an efficient and elegant algorithm for computing local heights on elliptic curves.
We prove that a positive proportion of squarefree integers are congruent numbers such that the canonical height of the lowest non-torsion rational point on the corresponding elliptic curve satisfies a strong lower bound.
We obtain new results concerning the Sato--Tate conjecture on the distribution of Frobenius angles over parametric families of elliptic curves with a rational parameter of bounded height.
We study genus one curves that arise as 2-, 3- and 4-coverings of elliptic curves. We describe efficient algorithms for testing local solubility and modify the classical formulae for the covering maps so that they work in all characteristics. These ingredients are then combined to give explicit bounds relating the height of a rational point on one of the covering curves to the height of its image on the elliptic curve. We use our results to improve the existing methods for searching for rational points on elliptic curves.
We compute a lower bound of the canonical height on quadratic twists of certain elliptic curves. Also we show a simple method for constructing families of quadratic twists with an explicit rational point. % from cubic polynomials. Using the above lower bound, we show that the explicit rational point is primitive as an element of the Mordell--Weil group.
We establish new upper bounds for the height of the S-integral points of an elliptic curve. This bound is explicitly given in terms of the set S of places of the number field K involved, but also in terms of the degree of K, as well as the rank, the regulator and the height of a basis of the Mordell-Weil group of the curve. The proof uses the elliptic analogue of Baker's method, based on lower bounds for linear forms in elliptic logarithms.
We adopt a statistical point of view on the conjecture of Lang which predicts a lower bound for the canonical height of non-torsion rational points on elliptic curves defined over $\mathbb{Q}$. More specifically, we prove that among the family of all elliptic curves defined over $\mathbb{Q}$ and having positive rank, there is a density one subfamily of curves which satisfy a strong form of Lang's conjecture.
To compute generators for the Mordell-Weil group of an elliptic curve over a number field, one needs to bound the difference between the naive and the canonical height from above. We give an elementary and fast method to compute an upper bound for the local contribution to this difference at an archimedean place, which sometimes gives better results than previous algorithms.
We formulate a conjecture about the distribution of the canonical height of the lowest non-torsion rational point on a quadratic twist of a given elliptic curve, as the twist varies. This conjecture seems to be very deep and we can only prove partial results in this direction.
For elliptic curves given by the equation $E_{a}: y^{2}=x^{3}+ax$, we establish the best-possible version of Lang's conjecture on the lower bound of the canonical height of non-torsion points along with best-possible upper and lower bounds for the difference between the canonical and logarithmic height.
For $E_{b}: y^{2}=x^{3}+b$, we establish Lang's conjecture on a lower bound for the canonical height of non-torsion points along with upper and lower bounds for the difference between the canonical and logarithmic height. In many cases, our results are actually best-possible.
We consider the practical computation of rational points on y^2=x(x^2+ax+b). The algebra necessary for a 4-descent procedure is described. A simple further descent is then described which only uses integer arithmetic. Numerous examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of this extra descent. Currently, the largest point found has height 51.15 or 102.3, depending on which height normalisation you use.
Let $C$ be an algebraic curve embedded transversally in a power $E^N$ of an elliptic curve $E$. In this article we produce a good explicit bound for the height of all the algebraic points on $C$ contained in the union of all proper algebraic subgroups of $E^N$. The method gives a totally explicit version of the Manin-Dam'janenko Theorem in the elliptic case and it is a generalisation of previous results only proved when $E$ does not have Complex Multiplication.
This paper focuses on the proof of Serge Lang's Heights Conjecture in a form that is completely effective. As a complementary result the author provides a new proof of Mazur-Merel theorem about a bound for the torsion of elliptic curves in terms of the degree of the ground field and improves the known result by providing a small polynomial bound in terms of this degree. (Submitted)
In this short note we show that the uniform abc-conjecture over number fields puts strong restrictions on the coordinates of rational points on elliptic curves. For the proof we use a variant of the uniform abc-conjecture over number fields formulated by Mochizuki. As an application, we generalize a result of Silverman on elliptic non-Wieferich primes.
We introduce an algorithm that can be used to compute the canonical height of a point on an elliptic curve over the rationals in quasi-linear time. As in most previous algorithms, we decompose the difference between the canonical and the naive height into an archimedean and a non-archimedean term. Our main contribution is an algorithm for the computation of the non-archimedean term that requires no integer factorization and runs in quasi-linear time.
A new proof is given for the explicit formulae for the non-archimedean canonical height on an elliptic curve. This arises as a direct calculation of the Haar integral in the elliptic Jensen formula.
We obtain asymptotic formulae for the number of primes $p\le x$ for which the reduction modulo $p$ of the elliptic curve $$ \E_{a,b} : Y^2 = X^3 + aX + b $$ satisfies certain ``natural'' properties, on average over integers $a$ and $b$ with $|a|\le A$ and $|b| \le B$, where $A$ and $B$ are small relative to $x$. Specifically, we investigate behavior with respect to the Sato--Tate conjecture, cyclicity, and divisibility of the number of points by a fixed integer $m$.
We show that the Boundedness Height Conjecture is optimal; all varieties in a power of an elliptic curve which do not satisfy the hypothesis neither satisfy the thesis. The Bounded Height Conjecture is known to hold for varieties in a power of an elliptic curve. We also present some examples and remarks.
We define a new canonical height pairing on the rational points of elliptic curves over global function fields which takes values in the multiplicative group of a completion of the function field. This height serves as an analogue of both the classical Neron-Tate height and analytic p-adic heights. Our main result is that under some general hypotheses this pairing is non-degenerate.
We give an asymptotic formula for the number of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ with bounded Faltings height. Silverman has shown that the Faltings height for elliptic curves over number fields can be expressed in terms of modular functions and the minimal discriminant of the elliptic curve. We use this to recast the problem as one of counting lattice points in a particular region in $\mathbb{R}^2$.
We give examples of points with particularly low height on elliptic curves over quadratic fields, recovered by a search over elliptic divisibility sequences. The smallest example identified satisfies dh(P)=0.0077127...: improving on the previous smallest for curves over quadratic fields of dh(P)=0.0194426... given by Everest and Ward; and comparable with some of the examples of smallest height on curves over Q tabulated by Elkies.
Let $E$ be an elliptic curve over the rationals. We will consider the infinite extension $\mathbb{Q}(E_{\text{tor}})$ of the rationals where we adjoin all coordinates of torsion points of $E$. In this paper we will prove an explicit lower bound for the height of non-zero elements in $\mathbb{Q}(E_{\text{tor}})$ that are not a root of unity, only depending on the conductor of the elliptic curve. As a side result we will give an explicit bound for a small supersingular prime for an elliptic curve.
We compare general inequalities between invariants of number fields and invariants of abelian varieties over number fields. On the number field side, we remark that there is only a finite number of non-CM number fields with bounded regulator. On the abelian side, assuming the height conjecture of Lang and Silverman, we obtain a Northcott property for the regulator on the set of abelian varieties with dense rational points over a number field. This amounts to say that the arithmetic of CM fields is similar, with respect to the invariants considered here, to the arithmetic of abelian varieties o…
Given an endomorphism f of projective space, we exhibit explicit bounds on the difference between the naive height of a divisor and its canonical height relative to f.
In this short note we prove a formula for local heights on elliptic curves over number fields in terms of intersection theory on a regular model over the ring of integers.
Given an elliptic curve E over a function field K=Q(T_1,...,T_n), we study the behavior of the canonical height ^h_(E_w) of the specialized elliptic curve E_w with respect to the height of w in Q^n. In this paper, we prove that there exists a uniform non-zero lower bound for the average of the quotient ^h_(E_w)(P_w)/h(w) for all non-torsion P in E(K).
A weighted projective stack is a stacky quotient $\mathscr P(\mathbf a)=(\mathbf A^n-\{0\})/\mathbb G_m$, where the action of $\mathbb G_m$ is with weights $\mathbf a\in\mathbb Z^n_{>0}$. Examples are: the compactified moduli stack of elliptic curves $\mathscr P(4,6)$ and the classifying stack of $μ_m$-torsors $Bμ_m=\mathscr P(m)$. We define heights on the weighted projective stacks. The heights generalize the naive height of an elliptic curve and the absolute discriminant of a torsor. We use the heights to count rational points. We find the asymptotic behaviour for the number of rational poin…
In this note, we determine which automorphism subgroups of $\mathrm{Aut}_{\mathbb{F}_q}(\mathbb{F}_q((x)))$ are corresponding to $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extensions or $\mathbb{Z}_p\times\mathbb{Z}_p$-extensions of characteristic $0$ fields.
Most systematic tables of data associated to ranks of elliptic curves order the curves by conductor. Recent developments, led by work of Bhargava-Shankar studying the average sizes of $n$-Selmer groups, have given new upper bounds on the average algebraic rank in families of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ ordered by height. We describe databases of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ ordered by height in which we compute ranks and $2$-Selmer group sizes, the distributions of which may also be compared to these theoretical results. A striking new phenomenon observed in these databases is that …
The goal of this paper is to obtain lower bounds on the height of an algebraic number in a relative setting, extending previous work of Amoroso and Masser. Specifically, in our first theorem we obtain an effective bound for the height of an algebraic number $α$ when the base field $\mathbb{K}$ is a number field and $\mathbb{K}(α)/\mathbb{K}$ is Galois. Our second result establishes an explicit height bound for any non-zero element $α$ which is not a root of unity in a Galois extension $\mathbb{F}/\mathbb{K}$, depending on the degree of $\mathbb{K}/\mathbb{Q}$ and the number of conjugates of $α…
We prove that when all elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ are ordered by height, the average size of their 4-Selmer groups is equal to 7. As a consequence, we show that a positive proportion (in fact, at least one fifth) of all 2-Selmer elements of elliptic curves, when ordered by height, do not lift to 4-Selmer elements, and thus correspond to nontrivial 2-torsion elements in the associated Tate--Shafarevich groups.
Let E/K be an ellptic curve defined over a number field, let h be the canonical height on E, and let K^ab be the maximal abelian extension of K. Extending work of M. Baker, we prove that there is a positive constant C(E/K) so that every nontorsion point P in E(K^ab) satisfies h(P) > C(E/K).
We investigate the number of curves having a rational point of almost minimal height in the family of quadratic twists of a given elliptic curve. This problem takes its origin in the work of Hooley, who asked this question in the setting of real quadratic fields. In particular, he showed an asymptotic estimate for the number of such fields with almost minimal fundamental unit. Our main result establishes the analogue asymptotic formula in the setting of quadratic twists of a fixed elliptic curve.
For each of n=1,2,3 we find the minimal height h^(P) of a nontorsion point P of an elliptic curve E over C(T) of discriminant degree d=12n (equivalently, of arithmetic genus n), and exhibit all (E,P) attaining this minimum. The minimal h^(P) was known to equal 1/30 for n=1 (Oguiso-Shioda) and 11/420 for n=2 (Nishiyama), but the formulas for the general (E,P) were not known, nor was the fact that these are also the minima for an elliptic curve of discriminant degree 12n over a function field of any genus. For n=3 both the minimal height (23/840) and the explicit curves are new. These (E,P) also…
In this paper we establish three results on small-height zeros of quadratic polynomials over $\overline{\mathbb Q}$. For a single quadratic form in $N \geq 2$ variables on a subspace of $\overline{\mathbb Q}^N$, we prove an upper bound on the height of a smallest nontrivial zero outside of an algebraic set under the assumption that such a zero exists. For a system of $k$ quadratic forms on an $L$-dimensional subspace of $\overline{\mathbb Q}^N$, $N \geq L \geq \frac{k(k+1)}{2}+1$, we prove existence of a nontrivial simultaneous small-height zero. For a system of one or two inhomogeneous quadra…
In 2016, Balakrishnan-Ho-Kaplan-Spicer-Stein-Weigandt produced a database of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ ordered by height in which they computed the rank, the size of the $2$-Selmer group, and other arithmetic invariants. They observed that after a certain point, the average rank seemed to decrease as the height increased. Here we consider the family of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ whose rational torsion subgroup is isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z} \times \mathbb{Z}/8\mathbb{Z}$. Conditional on GRH and BSD, we compute the rank of $92\%$ of the $202461$ curves with parameter he…
Let K be a number field and let E/K be an elliptic curve. If E has complex multiplication, we show that there is a positive lower bound for the canonical height of non-torsion points on E defined over the maximal abelian extension K^ab of K. This is analogous to results of Amoroso-Dvornicich and Amoroso-Zannier for the multiplicative group. We also show that if E has non-integral j-invariant (so that in particular E does not have complex multiplication), then there exists C > 0 such that there are only finitely many points P in E(K^ab) of canonical height less than C. This strengthens a result…
We count the number of rational elliptic curves of bounded naive height that have a rational $N$-isogeny, for $N \in \{2,3,4,5,6,8,9,12,16,18\}$. For some $N$, this is done by generalizing a method of Harron and Snowden. For the remaining cases, we use the framework of Ellenberg, Satriano and Zureick-Brown, in which the naive height of an elliptic curve is the height of the corresponding point on a moduli stack.
In this note we investigate the behaviour of the absolute logarithmic Weil-height h on extensions of the field $\mathbb{Q}^{tr}$ of totally real numbers. It is known that there is a gap between zero and the next smallest value of h on $\mathbb{Q}^{tr}$, whereas in $\mathbb{Q}^{tr}(i)$ there are elements of arbitrarily small positive height. We prove that all elements of small height in any finite extension of $\mathbb{Q}^{tr}$ already lie in $\mathbb{Q}^{tr}(i)$. This leads to a positive answer to a question of Amoroso, David and Zannier, if there exists a pseudo algebraically closed field wit…
Let $\mathbb{F}_q(T)$ be the field of rational functions in one variable over a finite field. We introduce the notion of a totally $T$-adic function: one that is algebraic over $\mathbb{F}_q(T)$ and whose minimal polynomial splits completely over the completion $\mathbb{F}_q(\!(T)\!)$. We give two proofs that the height of a nonconstant totally $T$-adic function is bounded away from zero, each of which provides a sharp lower bound. We spend the majority of the paper providing explicit constructions of totally $T$-adic functions of small height (via arithmetic dynamics) and minimum height (via …
We give new parametrisations of elliptic curves in Weierstrass normal form $y^2=x^3+ax^2+bx$ with torsion groups $\mathbb{Z}/10\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Z}/12\mathbb{Z}$ over $\mathbb{Q}$, and with $\mathbb{Z}/14\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Z}/16\mathbb{Z}$ over quadratic fields. Even though the parametrisations are equivalent to those given by Kubert and Rabarison, respectively, with the new parametrisations we found three infinite families of elliptic curves with torsion group $\mathbb{Z}/12\mathbb{Z}$ and positive rank. Furthermore, we found elliptic curves with torsion group $\mathbb{Z}/14\math…
We determine, for an elliptic curve $E/\mathbb Q$ and for all $p$, all the possible torsion groups $E(\mathbb Q_{\infty, p})_{tors}$, where $\mathbb Q_{\infty, p}$ is the $\mathbb Z_p$-extension of $\mathbb Q$.
We show that the minimum $h_{\text{min}}$ of the stable Faltings height on elliptic curves found by Deligne is followed by a gap. This means that there is a constant $C >0$ such that for every elliptic curve $E/K$ with everywhere semistable reduction over a number field $K$, we either have $h(E/K)=h_{\text{min}}$ or $h(E/K)\geq h_{\text{min}} +C$. We determine such an absolute constant explicitly. On the contrary, we show that there is no such gap for elliptic curves with unstable reduction.
We prove a theorem giving the asymptotic number of binary quartic forms having bounded invariants; this extends, to the quartic case, the classical results of Gauss and Davenport in the quadratic and cubic cases, respectively. Our techniques are quite general, and may be applied to counting integral orbits in other representations of algebraic groups. We use these counting results to prove that the average rank of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$, when ordered by their heights, is bounded. In particular, we show that when elliptic curves are ordered by height, the mean size of the 2-Selmer gr…
In this paper, we present details of seven elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}(u)$ with rank $2$ and torsion group $\mathbb{Z}/ 8\mathbb{Z}$ and five curves over $\mathbb{Q}(u)$ with rank $2$ and torsion group $\mathbb{Z}/ 2\mathbb{Z} \times \mathbb{Z}/ 6\mathbb{Z}$. We also exhibit some particular examples of curves with high rank over $\mathbb{Q}$ by specialization of the parameter. We present several sets of infinitely many elliptic curves in both torsion groups and rank at least $3$ parametrized by elliptic curves having positive rank. In some of these sets we have performed calculations abou…
We prove that, when all elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ are ordered by naive height, a positive proportion have both algebraic and analytic rank one. It follows that the average rank and the average analytic rank of elliptic curves are both strictly positive.
