arXiv subjects

Nils Bruin

Publications and source records attributed to Nils Bruin.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Visualizing elements of Sha[3] in genus 2 jacobians

Mazur proved that any element xi of order three in the Shafarevich-Tate group of an elliptic curve E over a number field k can be made visible in an abelian surface A in the sense that xi lies in the kernel of the natural homomorphism between the cohomology groups H^1(k,E) -> H^1(k,A). However, the abelian surface in Mazur's construction is almost never a jacobian of a genus 2 curve. In this paper we show that any element of order three in the Shafarevich-Tate group of an elliptic curve over a number field can be visualized in the jacobians of a genus 2 curve. Moreover, we describe how to get explicit models of the genus 2 curves involved.

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arXiv2009

The Mordell-Weil sieve: Proving non-existence of rational points on curves

We discuss the Mordell-Weil sieve as a general technique for proving results concerning rational points on a given curve. In the special case of curves of genus 2, we describe quite explicitly how the relevant local information can be obtained if one does not want to restrict to mod p information at primes of good reduction. We describe our implementation of the Mordell-Weil sieve algorithm and discuss its efficiency.

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arXiv2008

Two-cover descent on hyperelliptic curves

We describe an algorithm that determines a set of unramified covers of a given hyperelliptic curve, with the property that any rational point will lift to one of the covers. In particular, if the algorithm returns an empty set, then the hyperelliptic curve has no rational points. This provides a relatively efficiently tested criterion for solvability of hyperelliptic curves. We also discuss applications of this algorithm to curves of genus 1 and to curves with rational points.

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arXiv2007

On finiteness conjectures for endomorphism algebras of abelian surfaces

It is conjectured that there exist finitely many isomorphism classes of simple endomorphism algebras of abelian varieties of GL_2-type over \Q of bounded dimension. We explore this conjecture when particularized to quaternion endomorphism algebras of abelian surfaces by giving a moduli interpretation which translates the question into the diophantine arithmetic of Shimura curves embedded in Hilbert surfaces. We address the resulting problems on these curves by local and global methods, including Chabauty techniques on explicit equations of Shimura curves.

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arXiv2006

The arithmetic of Prym varieties in genus 3

Given a curve of genus 3 with an unramified double cover, we give an explicit description of the associated Prym-variety. We also describe how an unramified double cover of a non-hyperelliptic genus 3 curve can be mapped into the Jacobian of a curve of genus 2 over its field of definition and how this can be used to do Chabauty- and Brauer-Manin type calculations for curves of genus 5 with an unramified involution. As an application, we determine the rational points on a smooth plane quartic with no particular geometric properties and give examples of curves of genus 3 and 5 violating the Hasse-principle. We also show how these constructions can be used to design smooth plane quartics with specific arithmetic properties. As an example, we give a smooth plane quartic with all 28 bitangents defined over Q(t).

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arXiv2006

Deciding existence of rational points on curves: an experiment

We consider all genus 2 curves over Q given by an equation y^2 = f(x) with f a squarefree polynomial of degree 5 or 6, with integral coefficients of absolute value at most 3. For each of these roughly 200000 isomorphism classes of curves, we decide if there is a rational point on the curve or not, by a combination of techniques. For a small number of curves, our result is conditional on the BSD conjecture or on GRH.

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arXiv2003

The primitive solutions to x^3+y^9=z^2

We determine the rational integers x,y,z such that x^3+y^9=z^2 and gcd(x,y,z)=1. First we determine a finite set of curves of genus 10 such that any primitive solution to x^3+y^9=z^2 corresponds to a rational point on one of those curves. We observe that each of these genus 10 curves covers an elliptic curve over some extension of Q. We use this cover to apply a Chabauty-like method to an embedding of the curve in the Weil restriction of the elliptic curve. This enables us to find all rational points and therefore deduce the primitive solutions to the original equation.

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arXiv2002

Visualising Sha[2] in Abelian Surfaces

Given an elliptic curve E1 over a number field and an element s in its 2-Selmer group, we give two different ways to construct infinitely many Abelian surfaces A such that the homogeneous space representing s occurs as a fibre of A over another elliptic curve E2. We show that by comparing the 2-Selmer groups of E1, E2 and A, we can obtain information about Sha(E1/K)[2] and we give examples where we use this to obtain a sharp bound on the Mordell-Weil rank of an elliptic curve. As a tool, we give a precise description of the m-Selmer group of an Abelian surface A that is m-isogenous to a product of elliptic curves E1 x E2. One of the constructions can be applied iteratively to obtain information about Sha(E1/K)[2^n]. We give an example where we use this iterated application to exhibit an element of order 4 in Sha(E1/Q).

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