A conjecture on rational approximations to rational points
David McKinnon
备注：
49 pages, 3 figures. Exposition improved, particularly in the proofs of the main theorems, and the connection with accumulating subvarieties made explicit
In this paper, we examine how well a rational point P on an algebraic variety X can be approximated by other rational points. We conjecture that if P lies on a rational curve, then the best approximations to P on X can be chosen to lie along a rational curve. We prove this conjecture for a wide range of examples, and for a great many more examples we deduce our conjecture from Vojta's Main Conjecture.
We prove an upper bound on the log canonical threshold of a hypersurface that satisfies a certain power condition and use it to prove several generalizations of Igusa's conjecture on exponential sums, with the log-canonical threshold in the exponent of the estimates. We show that this covers optimally all situations of the conjectures for non-rational singularities, by comparing the log canonical threshold with a local notion of the motivic oscillation index.
We present a new proof of the Manin-Mumford conjecture about torsion points on algebraic subvarieties of abelian varieties. Our principle, which admits other applications, is to view torsion points as rational points on a complex torus and then compare (i) upper bounds for the number of rational points on a transcendental analytic variety (Bombieri-Pila-Wilkie) and (ii) lower bounds for the degree of a torsion point (Masser), after taking conjugates. In order to be able to deal with (i), we discuss (Thm. 2.1) the semi-algebraic curves contained in an analytic variety supposed invariant for tra…
Let $\mathscr{E}\rightarrow\mathbb{P}^1_\mathbb{Q}$ be a non-trivial rational elliptic surface over $\mathbb{Q}$ with base $\mathbb{P}^1_\mathbb{Q}$ (with a section). We conjecture that any non-trivial elliptic surface has a Zariski-dense set of $\mathbb{Q}$-rational points. In this paper we work on solving the conjecture in case $\mathscr{E}$ is rational by means of geometric and analytic methods. First, we show that for $\mathscr{E}$ rational, the set $\mathscr{E}(\mathbb{Q})$ is Zariski-dense when $\mathscr{E}$ is isotrivial with non-zero $j$-invariant and when $\mathscr{E}$ is non-isotrivi…
A rational distance set in the plane is a point set which has the property that all pairwise distances between its points are rational. Erd\H os and Ulam conjectured in 1945 that there is no dense rational distance set in the plane. In this paper we associate an algebraic surface in $\mathbb{P}^3$, that we call a distance surface, to any finite rational distance set in the plane. Under a mild condition, we prove that a distance surface is always a surface of general type. From this, we deduce that the Bombieri-Lang conjecture in arithmetic algebraic geometry (restricted to the classes of surfa…
We relate the problem of counting number fields, in particular, Malle's conjecture with the problem of counting rational points on singular Fano varieties, in particular, Batyrev and Tschinkel's generalization of Manin's conjecture.
A conjecture of Manin predicts the asymptotic distribution of rational points of bounded height on Fano varieties. In this paper we use conic bundles to obtain correct lower bounds or a wide class of surfaces over number fields for which the conjecture is still far from being proved. For example, we obtain the conjectured lower bound of Manin's conjecture for any del Pezzo surface whose Picard rank is sufficiently large, or for arbitrary del Pezzo surfaces after possibly an extension of the ground field of small degree.
We initiate a study of path spaces in the nascent context of "motivic dga's", under development in doctoral work by Gabriella Guzman. This enables us to reconstruct the unipotent fundamental group of a pointed scheme from the associated augmented motivic dga, and provides us with a factorization of Kim's relative unipotent section conjecture into several smaller conjectures with a homotopical flavor. Based on a conversation with Joseph Ayoub, we prove that the path spaces of the punctured projective line over a number field are concentrated in degree zero with respect to Levine's t-structure f…
Given a smooth projective variety $X$ over a number field $k$ and $P\in X(k)$, the first author conjectured that in a precise sense, any sequence that approximates $P$ sufficiently well must lie on a rational curve. We prove this conjecture for smooth split toric surfaces conditional on Vojta's conjecture. More generally, we show that if $X$ is a $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial terminal split toric variety of arbitrary dimension, then $P$ is better approximated by points on a rational curve than by any Zariski dense sequence.
A conjecture of Batyrev and Manin predicts the asymptotic behaviour of rational points of bounded height on smooth projective varieties over number fields. We prove some new cases of this conjecture for conic bundle surfaces equipped with some non-anticanonical height functions. As a special case, we verify these conjectures for the first time for some smooth cubic surfaces for height functions associated to certain ample line bundles.
A conjecture of Manin predicts the distribution of K-rational points on certain algebraic varieties defined over a number field K. In recent years, a method using universal torsors has been successfully applied to several hard special cases of Manin's conjecture over the field Q of rational numbers. Combining this method with techniques developed by Schanuel, we give a proof of Manin's conjecture over arbitrary number fields for the singular cubic surface S given by the equation w^3 = x y z.
In this paper we make a series of numerical experiments to support Greenberg's $p$-rationality conjecture, we present a family of $p$-rational biquadratic fields and we find new examples of $p$-rational multiquadratic fields. In the case of multiquadratic and multicubic fields we show that the conjecture is a consequence of the Cohen-Lenstra-Martinet heuristic and of the conjecture of Hofmann and Zhang on the $p$-adic regulator, and we bring new numerical data to support the extensions of these conjectures. We compare the known algorithmic tools and propose some improvements.
We prove the Dynamical Bogomolov Conjecture for endomorphisms of P^1\times P^1 defined over a number field. We use the equidistribution theorem for points of small height with respect to an algebraic dynamical system, combined with a theorem of Levin regarding symmetries of the Julia set. Using a specialization theorem of Yuan and Zhang, we prove the Dynamical Manin-Mumford Conjecture for endomorhisms of P^1\times P^1 defined over the complex numbers.
In despair, as Deligne (2000) put it, of proving the Hodge and Tate conjectures, we can try to find substitutes. For abelian varieties in characteristic zero, Deligne (1982) constructed a theory of Hodge classes having many of the properties that the algebraic classes would have if the Hodge conjecture were known. In this article I investigate whether there exists a theory of "rational Tate classes" on varieties over finite fields having the properties that the algebraic classes would have if the Hodge and Tate conjectures were known. v3. Submitted version.
Manin's conjecture predicts the asymptotic behavior of the number of rational points of bounded height on algebraic varieties. For toric varieties, it was proved by Batyrev and Tschinkel via height zeta functions and an application of the Poisson formula. An alternative approach to Manin's conjecture via universal torsors was used so far mainly over the field Q of rational numbers. In this note, we give a proof of Manin's conjecture over the Gaussian rational numbers Q(i) and over other imaginary quadratic number fields with class number 1 for the singular toric cubic surface defined by t^3=xy…
Wan conjectures that if $X$ and $Y$ form a strong mirror pair of Calabi-Yau varieties over a finite field $F_q$ with $q$ elements, then X and Y have the same number of $F_{q^k}$-rational points modulo $q^k$. We prove this conjecture under the condition that $Y$ can be obtained from $X$ through quotient construction.
We use birational geometry to show that the existence of rational points on proper rationally connected varieties over fields of characteristic $0$ is a consequence of the existence of rational points on terminal Fano varieties. We discuss several consequences of this result, especially in relation to the $C_1$-conjecture. We also provide evidence that supports the conjecture in dimension $3$ for $C_1$ fields of characteristic $0$.
We define a notion of height for rational points with respect to a vector bundle on a proper algebraic stack with finite diagonal over a global field, which generalizes the usual notion for rational points on projective varieties. We explain how to compute this height for various stacks of interest (for instance: classifying stacks of finite groups, symmetric products of varieties, moduli stacks of abelian varieties, weighted projective spaces). In many cases our uniform definition reproduces ways already in use for measuring the complexity of rational points, while in others it is something n…
We prove a function field version of Chowla's conjecture on the autocorrelation of the Möbius function in the limit of a large finite field of characteristic 2.
Conjectures on the existence of zero-cycles on arbitrary smooth projective varieties over number fields were proposed by Colliot-Thélène, Sansuc, Kato and Saito in the 1980's. We prove that these conjectures are compatible with fibrations, for fibrations into rationally connected varieties over a curve. In particular, they hold for the total space of families of homogeneous spaces of linear groups with connected geometric stabilisers. We prove the analogous result for rational points, conditionally on a conjecture on locally split values of polynomials which a recent work of Matthiesen establi…
We show that Vojta's conjecture for some rational surfaces is related to the $abc$ conjecture. More specifically, we prove that Vojta's conjecture on these surfaces implies a special case of the $abc$ conjecture, while the $abc$ conjecture implies Vojta's conjecture on these surfaces. Moreover, for similar but different rational surfaces, we prove Vojta's conjecture unconditionally. To prove these results, we use some (possibly new) properties of Farey sequences.
Corvaja and Zannier conjectured that an abelian variety over a number field satisfies a modified version of the Hilbert property. We investigate their conjecture for products of elliptic curves using Kawamata's structure result for ramified covers of abelian varieties, and Faltings's finiteness theorem for rational points on higher genus curves.
Vojta's Conjectures are well known to imply a wide range of results, known and unknown, in arithmetic geometry. In this paper, we add to the list by proving that they imply that rational points tend to repel each other on algebraic varieties with nonnegative Kodaira dimension. We use this to deduce, from Vojta's Conjectures, conjectures of Batyrev-Manin and Manin on the distribution of rational points on algebraic varieties. In particular, we show that Vojta's Main Conjecture implies the Batyrev-Manin Conjecture for $K3$ surfaces.
The conjecture due to Bertrand and Rodriguez Villegas asserts that the 1-norm of the nonzero element in an exterior power of the units of a number field has a certain lower bound. We prove this conjecture for the exterior square case when the number field is a real multi-quadratic Galois extension of any degree of the rationals.
Define $θ(x)=(x-1)/3$ if $x\geq 1$, and $θ(x)=2x/(1-x)$ if $x<1$. We conjecture that the orbit of every positive rational number ends in 0. In particular, there does not exist any positive rational fixed point for a map in the semigroup $Ω$ generated by the maps $3x+1$ and $x/(x+2)$. In this paper, we prove that the asymptotic density of the set of elements in $Ω$ that have rational fixed points is zero.
We conjecture that the exceptional set in Manin's Conjecture has an explicit geometric description. Our proposal includes the rational point contributions from any generically finite map with larger geometric invariants. We prove that this set is contained in a thin subset of rational points, verifying there is no counterexample to Manin's Conjecture which arises from an incompatibility of geometric invariants.
In this short note we confirm the relation between the generalized $abc$-conjecture and the $p$-rationality of number fields. Namely, we prove that given K$/\mathbb{Q}$ a real quadratic extension or an imaginary $S_3$-extension, if the generalized $abc$-conjecture holds in K, then there exist at least $c\,\log X$ prime numbers $p \leq X$ for which K is $p$-rational, here $c$ is some nonzero constant depending on K. The real quadratic case was recently suggested by Böckle-Guiraud-Kalyanswamy-Khare.
In this paper, we study maps between moduli spaces of lattice-polarized K3 surfaces induced by sublattices of prime index. We show that these maps can be used to determine if a rational point of the moduli space belongs to the Noether-Lefschetz locus. As an application, we prove that the Bombieri-Lang conjecture implies non-density statements for the rational points in the Noether-Lefschetz locus, as predicted by a conjecture of Shafarevich.
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.
The purpose of this note is give some evidence in support of conjectures of Poonen, and Morton and Silverman, on the periods of rational numbers under the iteration of quadratic polynomials. In particular, Poonen conjectured that there are at most 9 periodic points defined over the rational numbers for any map in the family x^2 + c for c rational. We verify this conjecture for c values up to height 10^8. For quadratic number fields, we provide evidence that the upper bound on the exact period of Q-rational periodic point is 6.
Fix a rational basepoint b and a rational number c. For the quadratic dynamical system f_c(x) = x^2+c, it has been shown that the number of rational points in the backward orbit of b is bounded independent of the choice of rational parameter c. In this short note we investigate the dependence of the bound on the basepoint b, assuming a strong form of the Mordell Conjecture.
Jones conjectures the arboreal representation of a degree two rational map will have finite index in the full automorphism group of a binary rooted tree except under certain conditions. We prove a version of Jones' Conjecture for quadratic and cubic polynomials assuming the $abc$-Conjecture and Vojta's Conjecture. We also exhibit a family of degree $2$ rational maps and give examples of degree $3$ polynomial maps whose arboreal representations have finite index in the appropriate group of tree automorphisms.
On Greenberg's conjecture for rational elliptic curves at Eisenstein primes
University of Massachusetts Amherst（马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校）；Morningside Center of Mathematics（中国科学院数学与系统科学研究院）；Academy of Mathematics and Systems Sciences, Chinese Academy of Science
We prove several results on the number of rational points on open subsets of Kummer varieties of arbitrary dimension. Some of our results are unconditional, and others depend on the Parity Conjecture (a corollary of the Conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer). As examples, we show that (conditional on the Parity Conjecture) all odd-dimension Kummer varieties over Q which are quotients of absolutely simple abelian varieties have dense rational points, and we construct an infinite family of K3 surfaces with dense rational points.
A rational distance set is a subset of the plane such that the distance between any two points is a rational number. We show, assuming Lang's Conjecture, that the cardinalities of rational distance sets in general position are uniformly bounded, generalizing results of Solymosi-de Zeeuw, Makhul-Shaffaf, Shaffaf, and Tao. In the process, we give a criterion for certain varieties with non-canonical singularities to be of general type.
In 2007, A.I.Aptekarev and his collaborators discovered a sequence of rational approximations to Euler's constant $γ$ defined by a linear recurrence. In this paper, we generalize this result and present an explicit construction of rational approximations for the numbers $\ln(b)-ψ(a+1),$ $a, b\in {\mathbb Q},$ $b>0, a>-1,$ where $ψ$ defines the logarithmic derivative of the Euler gamma function. We prove exact formulas for denominators and numerators of the approximations in terms of hypergeometric sums. As a consequence, we get rational approximations for the numbers $π/2\pmγ.$ We compare the …
Let $E$ be an elliptic curve over $\mathbb{Q}$ such that $\mathrm{End}_{\bar{\mathbb{Q}}}(E)=\mathbb{Z}$ and which admits a non-trivial cyclic $\mathbb{Q}$-isogeny. We prove that, for $p>37$, the residual mod $p$ Galois representation $\barρ_{E,p}:G_{\mathbb{Q}}\rightarrow\mathrm{GL}_2(\mathbb{F}_p)$ is surjective.
We show that an earlier conjecture of the author, on diophantine approximation of rational points on varieties, implies the ``abc conjecture'' of Masser and Oesterl'e. In fact, a weak form of the former conjecture is sufficient, involving an extra hypothesis that the variety and divisor admit a faithful group action of a certain type. Analogues of this weaker conjecture are proved in the split function field case of characteristic zero, and in the case of holomorphic curves (Nevanlinna theory). The proof of the latter involves a geometric generalization of the classical lemma on the logarithmi…
We conjecture a lower bound for the minimal canonical height of non-torsion rational points on a natural density 1 subset of the sextic twist family of Mordell curves. We then establish a lower bound that yields a partial result towards this conjecture.
We show that Mazur's conjecture on the real topology of rational points on varieties implies that there is no diophantine model of the rational integers in the rational numbers. We also prove that there is a diophantine model of the polynomial ring over a finite field in the ring of rational functions over that finite field. Both proofs depend upon Matijasevich's theorem.
Under fairly natural assumptions, Huang counted the number of rational points lying close to an arc of a planar curve. He obtained upper and lower bounds of the correct order of magnitude, and conjectured an asymptotic formula. In this note, we establish the conjectured asymptotic formula.
Let X be the wonderful compactification of a connected adjoint semisimple group G defined over a number field K. We prove Manin's conjecture on the asymptotic (as T\to \infty) of the number of K-rational points of X of height less than T, and give an explicit construction of a measure on X(A), generalizing Peyre's measure, which describes the asymptotic distribution of the rational points G(K) on X(A). Our approach is based on the mixing property of L^2(G(K)\G(A)) which we obtain with a rate of convergence.
We classify the graphs that can occur as the graph of rational preperiodic points of a quadratic polynomial over $\bold Q$, assuming the conjecture that it is impossible to have rational points of period $4$ or higher. In particular, we show under this assumption that the number of preperiodic points is at most~$9$. Elliptic curves of small conductor and the genus~$2$ modular curves $X_1(13)$, $X_1(16)$, and $X_1(18)$ all arise as curves classifying quadratic polynomials with various combinations of preperiodic points. To complete the classification, we compute the rational points on a non-mod…
Let X be an algebraic curve over Q and t a non-constant Q-rational function on X such that Q(t) is a proper subfield of Q(X). For every integer n pick a point P_n on X such that t(P_n)=n. We conjecture that, for large N, among the number fields Q(P_1), ..., Q(P_N) there are at least cN distinct. We prove this conjecture in the special case when t defines a geometrically abelian covering of the projective line, and the critical values of t are all rational. This implies, in particular, that our conjecture follows from a famous conjecture of Schinzel.
Schinzel's Hypothesis (H) was used by Colliot-Thélène and Sansuc, and later by Serre, Swinnerton-Dyer and others, to prove that the Brauer-Manin obstruction controls the Hasse principle and weak approximation on pencils of conics and similar varieties. We show that when the ground field is Q and the degenerate geometric fibres of the pencil are all defined over Q, one can use these methods to obtain unconditional results by replacing Hypothesis (H) with the finite complexity case of the generalised Hardy-Littlewood conjecture recently established by Green, Tao and Ziegler.
Given a rational function of degree at least two defined over a number field k, we study the cardinality of the set of rational iterated preimages. We prove bounds for the cardinality of this set as the rational function varies in certain families. Our proofs are based on unit equations and a method of Runge for effectively determining integral points on certain affine curves. We also formulate and state a uniform boundedness conjecture for iterated preimages of rational functions and relate this conjecture to other well-known conjectures in arithmetic dynamics.
On the twisted Fermat cubic, an elliptic divisibility sequence arises as the sequence of denominators of the multiples of a single rational point. We prove that the number of prime terms in the sequence is uniformly bounded. When the rational point is the image of another rational point under a certain 3-isogeny, all terms beyond the first fail to be primes.
