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).
On an abelian scheme over a smooth curve over $\overline{\mathbb Q}$ a symmetric relatively ample line bundle defines a fiberwise Néon-Tate height. If the base curve is inside a projective space, we also have a height on its $\overline{\mathbb Q}$-points that serves as a measure of each fiber, an abelian variety. Silverman proved an asymptotic equality between these two heights on a curve in the abelian scheme. In this paper we prove an inequality between these heights on a subvariety of any dimension of the abelian scheme. As an application we prove the Geometric Bogomolov Conjecture for the …
In this note, we propose the modular height of an abelian variety defined over a field of finite type over Q. Moreover, we prove its finiteness property.
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 prove that for abelian varieties with semistable ordinary reduction the p-adic Mazur-Tate height pairing is induced by the unit root splitting of the Hodge filtration on the first deRham cohomology.
Let A be an abelian variety defined over a number field K, and consider the canonical height function attached to a symmetric ample line bundle L on A. We prove that there is a positive lower bound C (depending on A, K, and L) for the canonical height of non-torsion points on A defined over the maximal abelian extension K^ab of K.
This paper is the sequel of our paper "Arithmetic height functions over finitely generated fields" (cf. math.NT/9809016). In this paper, we define the canonical height of subvarieties of an abelian variety over a finitely generated field over Q. We also prove that the canonical height of a subvariety is zero if and only if it is a translation of an abelian subvariety by a torsion point.
Given a family of abelian varieties over a quasiprojective smooth curve $T^0$ over a global field and a point $P$ on the generic fiber, we show that the Néron-Tate canonical height $h_{X_t}(P_t)$ of $P_t$ along each fiber is exactly equal to a Weil height $h_{\overline M}(t)$ given by an adelic metrized line bundle $\overline M$ on the unique smooth projective curve $T$ containing $T^0$. As a consequence, we show that a conjecture of Zhang on the finiteness of small-height specializations of $P$ is equivalent to $\overline M$ being big.
We prove that assuming the Colmez conjecture and the ``no Siegel zeros" conjecture, the stable Faltings height of a CM abelian variety over a number field is less than or equal to the logarithm of the root discriminant of the field of definition of the abelian variety times an effective constant depending only on the dimension of the abelian variety. In view of the fact that the Colmez conjecture for abelian CM fields, the averaged Colmez conjecture, and the ``no Siegel zeros" conjecture for CM fields with no complex quadratic subfields are already proved, we prove unconditional analogues of t…
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.
Let M be the Shimura variety associated with the group of spinor similitudes of a rational quadratic space over of signature (n,2). We prove a conjecture of Bruinier-Kudla-Yang, relating the arithmetic intersection multiplicities of special divisors and big CM points on M to the central derivatives of certain $L$-functions. As an application of this result, we prove an averaged version of Colmez's conjecture on the Faltings heights of CM abelian varieties.
We lower bound the Faltings height of an abelian variety over a number field by the sum of its injectivity diameter and the norm of its bad reduction primes. It leads to an unconditional bound on the rank of Mordell-Weil groups. Assuming the height conjecture of Lang and Silverman, we then obtain a Northcott property for the regulator on the set of simple abelian varieties defined over a fixed number field, of fixed dimension $g$, bounded rank and with dense rational points over a number field. We remove the simplicity assumption in the principally polarized case by giving a refined version of…
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.
Let E be an elliptic curve over the rationals. Let L be an infinite Galois extension of the rationals with uniformly bounded local degrees at almost all primes. We will consider the infinite extension L(E_tor) of the rationals where we adjoin all coordinates of torsion points of E. In this paper we will prove an effective lower bound for the height of non-zero elements in L(E_tor) that are not a root of unity.
Let $E$ be an elliptic curve defined over the rationals without complex multiplication. The field $F$ generated by all torsion points of $E$ is an infinite, non-abelian Galois extension of the rationals which has unbounded, wild ramification above all primes. We prove that the absolute logarithmic Weil height of an element of $F$ is either zero or bounded from below by a positive constant depending only on $E$. We also show that the Néron-Tate height has a similar gap on $E(F)$ and use this to determine the structure of the group $E(F)$.
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 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.
In 1983 Silverman and Tate showed that the set of points in a 1-dimensional family of abelian varieties where a section of infinite order has `small height' is finite. We conjecture a generalisation to higher-dimensional families, where we replace `finite' by `not Zariski dense'. We show that this conjecture would imply the Uniform Boundedness Conjecture for torsion points on abelian varieties. We then prove a few special cases of this new conjecture.
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.
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.
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 $E$ 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Let $B$ be a simple CM abelian variety over a CM field $E$, $p$ a rational prime. Suppose that $B$ has potentially ordinary reduction above $p$ and is self-dual with root number $-1$. Under some further conditions, we prove the generic non-vanishing of (cyclotomic) $p$-adic heights on $B$ along anticyclotomic $\Z_{p}$-extensions of $E$. This provides evidence towards Schneider's conjecture on the non-vanishing of $p$-adic heights. For CM elliptic curves over $\Q$, the result was previously known as a consequence of work of Bertrand, Gross--Zagier and Rohrlich in the 1980s. Our proof is based o…
This work is the third part of a series of papers. In the first two we consider curves and varieties in a power of an elliptic curve. Here we deal with subvarieties of an abelian variety in general. Let V be an irreducible variety of dimension d embedded in an abelian variety A, both defined over the algebraic numbers. We say that V is weak-transverse if V is not contained in any proper algebraic subgroup of A, and transverse if it is not contained in any translate of such a subgroup. Assume a conjectural lower bound for the normalized height of V. For V transverse, we prove that the algebraic…
Canonical heights and Arakelov geometry on semi-abelian varieties. In this paper, we propose a construction of the canonical heights on an extension of an abelian variety by the multiplicative group, in the framework of Arakelov geometry. These canonical heights are the sum of some height coming from the abelian variety and something we call a relative height. We finally give some complements about the points whose relative height is zero.
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…
Let $K$ be a 1-dimensional function field over an algebraically closed field of characteristic $0$, and let $A/K$ be an abelian surface. Under mild assumptions, we prove a Lehmer-type lower bound for points in $A(\bar{K})$. More precisely, we prove that there are constants $C_1,C_2>0$ such that the normalized Bernoulli-part of the canonical height is bounded below by $$ \hat{h}_A^{\mathbb{B}}(P) \ge C_1\bigl[K(P):K\bigr]^{-2} $$ for all points $P\in{A(\bar{K})}$ whose height satisfies $0<\hat{h}_A(P)\le{C_2}$.
Initially motivated by the relations between Anabelian Geometry and Artin's L-functions of the associated Galois-representations, here we study the list of zeta-functions of genus two abelian coverings of elliptic curves over finite fields. Our goal is to provide a complete description of such a list.
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 $m$.
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 …
We compute the image of Enriquez' elliptic KZB associator in the (maximal) meta-abelian quotient of the fundamental Lie algebra of a once-punctured elliptic curve. Our main result is an explicit formula for this image in terms of Eichler integrals of Eisenstein series, and is analogous to Deligne's computation of the depth one quotient of the Drinfeld associator. We also show how to retrieve Zagier's extended period polynomials of Eisenstein series, as well as the values at zero of Beilinson--Levin's elliptic polylogarithms from the meta-abelian elliptic KZB associator.
This version improves the old version entitled "On the modularity of elliptic curves with a residually irreducible representation". Let $E$ be an elliptic curve over an abelian totally real field $K$ unramified at 3,5, and 7. We prove that $E$ is modular.
Let $F$ be an algebraic extension of the rational numbers and $E$ an elliptic curve defined over some number field contained in $F$. The absolute logarithmic Weil height, respectively the Néron-Tate height, induces a norm on $F^*$ modulo torsion, respectively on $E(F)$ modulo torsion. The groups $F^*$ and $E(F)$ are free abelian modulo torsion if the height function does not attain arbitrarily small positive values. In this paper we prove the failure of the converse to this statement by explicitly constructing counterexamples.
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…
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 $$ \widehat{h}(P)> \frac{|E_{\mathrm{tor}}(\mathbb{Q})|^2}{\left( H(-D)+ |E_{\mathrm{tor}}(\mathbb{Q})|\right)^2}\cdot T_E(-D). $$
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…
Let $E$ be an elliptic curve defined over $\mathbb{Q}$, and let $\mathbb{Q}^{ab}$ be the maximal abelian extension of $\mathbb{Q}$. In this article we classify the groups that can arise as $E(\mathbb{Q}^{ab})_{\text{tors}}$ up to isomorphism. The method illustrates techniques for finding explicit models of modular curves of mixed level structure. Moreover we provide an explicit algorithm to compute $E(\mathbb{Q}^{ab})_{\text{tors}}$ for any elliptic curve $E/\mathbb{Q}$.
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.
Let f : X --> X be an endomorphism of a normal projective variety defined over a global field K, and let D_0,D_1,D_2,... be divisor classes that form a Jordan block with eigenvalue b for the action of f^* on Pic(X) tensored with C. We construct appropriately normalized canonical heights h_0,h_1,h_2,... associated to D_0,D_1,D_2,... and satisfying Jordan transformation formulas h_k(f(x)) = b h_k(x) + h_{k-1}(x). As an application, we prove that for every x in X, the arithmetic degree a_f(x) exists, is an algebraic integer, and takes on only finitely many values as x varies over X. Further, if X…
We study the problem of describing local components of height functions on abelian varieties over characteristic $0$ local fields as functions on spaces of torsors under various realisations of a $2$-step unipotent motivic fundamental group naturally associated to the defining line bundle. To this end, we present three main theorems giving such a description in terms of the $\mathbb Q_\ell$- and $\mathbb Q_p$-pro-unipotent étale realisations when the base field is $p$-adic, and in terms of the $\mathbb R$-pro-unipotent Betti--de Rham realisation when the base field is archimedean. In the cours…