The group of Weierstrass points of a plane quartic with at least eight hyperflexes

The group generated by the Weierstrass points of a smooth curve in its Jacobian is an intrinsic invariant of the curve. We determine this group for all smooth quartics with eight hyperflexes or more. Since Weierstrass points are closely related to moduli spaces of curves, as an application, we get bounds on both the rank and the torsion part of this group for a generic quartic having a fixed number of hyperflexes in the moduli space of curves of genus 3.

     

Plane quartics with Jacobians isomorphic to a hyperelliptic Jacobian

We show how for every integer one can explicitly construct distinct plane quartics and one hyperelliptic curve over all of whose Jacobians are isomorphic to one another as abelian varieties without polarization. When we say that the curves can be constructed ``explicitly', we mean that the coefficients of the defining equations of the curves are simple rational expressions in algebraic numbers in whose minimal polynomials over can be given exactly and whose decimal approximations can be given to as many places as is necessary to distinguish them from their conjugates. We also prove a simply-stated theorem that allows one to decide whether or not two plane quartics over , each with a pair of commuting involutions, are isomorphic to one another.

     

Sieving for rational points on hyperelliptic curves

We give a new and efficient method of sieving for rational points on hyperelliptic curves. This method is often successful in proving that a given hyperelliptic curve, suspected to have no rational points, does in fact have no rational points; we have often found this to be the case even when our curve has points over all localizations . We illustrate the practicality of the method with some examples of hyperelliptic curves of genus .

     

Mod representations of elliptic curves

Explicit equations are given for the elliptic curves (in characteristic ) with mod representation isomorphic to that of a given one.

     

Integral points on elliptic curves and -torsion in class groups

We give new bounds for the number of integral points on elliptic curves. The method may be said to interpolate between approaches via diophantine techniques and methods based on quasi-orthogonality in the Mordell-Weil lattice. We apply our results to break previous bounds on the number of elliptic curves of given conductor and the size of the -torsion part of the class group of a quadratic field. The same ideas can be used to count rational points on curves of higher genus.

     

Modular curves of genus 2

We prove that there are exactly genus two curves defined over such that there exists a nonconstant morphism defined over and the jacobian of is -isogenous to the abelian variety attached by Shimura to a newform . We determine the corresponding newforms and present equations for all these curves.

     

Biliaison classes of curves in

We characterize the curves in that are minimal in their biliaison class. Such curves are exactly the curves that do not admit an elementary descending biliaison. As a consequence we have that every curve in can be obtained from a minimal one by means of a finite sequence of ascending elementary biliaisons.

     

Curves of genus 2 with group of automorphisms isomorphic to or

The classification of curves of genus 2 over an algebraically closed field was studied by Clebsch and Bolza using invariants of binary sextic forms, and completed by Igusa with the computation of the corresponding three-dimensional moduli variety . The locus of curves with group of automorphisms isomorphic to one of the dihedral groups or is a one-dimensional subvariety.

In this paper we classify these curves over an arbitrary perfect field of characteristic in the case and in the case. We first parameterize the -isomorphism classes of curves defined over by the -rational points of a quasi-affine one-dimensional subvariety of ; then, for every curve representing a point in that variety we compute all of its -twists, which is equivalent to the computation of the cohomology set .

The classification is always performed by explicitly describing the objects involved: the curves are given by hyperelliptic models and their groups of automorphisms represented as subgroups of . In particular, we give two generic hyperelliptic equations, depending on several parameters of , that by specialization produce all curves in every -isomorphism class.

     

Pencils and infinite dihedral covers of

In this work we study the connection between the existence of finite dihedral covers of the projective plane ramified along an algebraic curve , infinite dihedral covers, and pencils of curves containing .

     

Towers of 2-covers of hyperelliptic curves

In this article, we give a way of constructing an unramified Galois-cover of a hyperelliptic curve. The geometric Galois-group is an elementary abelian -group. The construction does not make use of the embedding of the curve in its Jacobian, and it readily displays all subcovers. We show that the cover we construct is isomorphic to the pullback along the multiplication-by- map of an embedding of the curve in its Jacobian.

We show that the constructed cover has an abundance of elliptic and hyperelliptic subcovers. This makes this cover especially suited for covering techniques employed for determining the rational points on curves. In particular the hyperelliptic subcovers give a chance for applying the method iteratively, thus creating towers of elementary abelian 2-covers of hyperelliptic curves.

As an application, we determine the rational points on the genus curve arising from the question of whether the sum of the first fourth powers can ever be a square. For this curve, a simple covering step fails, but a second step succeeds.

     

Hermite interpolation by Pythagorean hodograph curves of degree seven

Polynomial Pythagorean hodograph (PH) curves form a remarkable subclass of polynomial parametric curves; they are distinguished by having a polynomial arc length function and rational offsets (parallel curves). Many related references can be found in the article by Farouki and Neff on Hermite interpolation with PH quintics. We extend the Hermite interpolation scheme by taking additional curvature information at the segment boundaries into account. As a result we obtain a new construction of curvature continuous polynomial PH spline curves. We discuss Hermite interpolation of boundary data (points, first derivatives, and curvatures) with PH curves of degree 7. It is shown that up to eight possible solutions can be found by computing the roots of two quartic polynomials. With the help of the canonical Taylor expansion of planar curves, we analyze the existence and shape of the solutions. More precisely, for Hermite data which are taken from an analytical curve, we study the behaviour of the solutions for decreasing stepsize . It is shown that a regular solution is guaranteed to exist for sufficiently small stepsize , provided that certain technical assumptions are satisfied. Moreover, this solution matches the shape of the original curve; the approximation order is 6. As a consequence, any given curve, which is assumed to be (curvature continuous) and to consist of analytical segments can approximately be converted into polynomial PH form. The latter assumption is automatically satisfied by the standard curve representations of Computer Aided Geometric Design, such as Bézier or B-spline curves. The conversion procedure acts locally, without any need for solving a global system of equations. It produces polynomial PH spline curves of degree 7.

     

Satoh's algorithm in characteristic 2

We give an algorithm for counting points on arbitrary ordinary elliptic curves over finite fields of characteristic , extending the method given by Takakazu Satoh, giving the asymptotically fastest point counting algorithm known to date.

     

Maximum curves and isolated points of entire functions

Given , curves belonging to the set of points were defined by Hardy to be maximum curves. Clunie asked the question as to whether the set could also contain isolated points. This paper shows that maximum curves consist of analytic arcs and determines a necessary condition for such curves to intersect. Given two entire functions and , if the maximum curve of is the real axis, conditions are found so that the real axis is also a maximum curve for the product function . By means of these results an entire function of infinite order is constructed for which the set has an infinite number of isolated points. A polynomial is also constructed with an isolated point.

     

Enumerative tropical algebraic geometry in

The paper establishes a formula for enumeration of curves of arbitrary genus in toric surfaces. It turns out that such curves can be counted by means of certain lattice paths in the Newton polygon. The formula was announced earlier in Counting curves via lattice paths in polygons, C. R. Math. Acad. Sci. Paris 336 (2003), no. 8, 629-634.

The result is established with the help of the so-called tropical algebraic geometry. This geometry allows one to replace complex toric varieties with the real space and holomorphic curves with certain piecewise-linear graphs there.

     

Surfaces with

We classify minimal complex surfaces of general type with . More precisely, we show that such a surface is either the symmetric product of a curve of genus or a free quotient of the product of a curve of genus and a curve of genus . Our main tools are the generic vanishing theorems of Green and Lazarsfeld and the characterization of theta divisors given by Hacon in Corollary 3.4 of Fourier transforms, generic vanishing theorems and polarizations of abelian varieties.

     

Helly-type theorems for homothets of planar convex curves

Helly's theorem implies that if is a finite collection of (positive) homothets of a planar convex body , any three having non-empty intersection, then has non-empty intersection. We show that for collections of homothets (including translates) of the boundary , if any four curves in have non-empty intersection, then has non-empty intersection. We prove the following dual version: If any four points of a finite set in the plane can be covered by a translate [homothet] of , then can be covered by a translate [homothet] of . These results are best possible in general.

     

On the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of connected curves

In this paper we prove that the regularity of a connected curve is bounded by its degree minus its codimension plus 1. We also investigate the structure of connected curves for which this bound is optimal. In particular, we construct connected curves of arbitrarily high degree in having maximal regularity, but no extremal secants. We also show that any connected curve in of degree at least 5 with maximal regularity and no linear components has an extremal secant.

     

Geometry of families of nodal curves on the blown-up projective plane

Let be the projective plane blown up at generic points. Denote by the strict transform of a generic straight line on and the exceptional divisors of the blown-up points on respectively. We consider the variety of all irreducible curves in with nodes as the only singularities and give asymptotically nearly optimal sufficient conditions for its smoothness, irreducibility and non-emptiness. Moreover, we extend our conditions for the smoothness and the irreducibility to families of reducible curves. For we give the complete answer concerning the existence of nodal curves in .

     

Average size of -Selmer groups of elliptic curves, I

In this paper, we study a class of elliptic curves over with -torsion group , and prove that the average order of the -Selmer groups is bounded.

     

Genus mapping class groups are not Kähler

The goal of this note is to prove that the mapping class groups of closed orientable surfaces of genus 2 (with punctures) are not Kähler. An application to compactifications of the moduli space of genus curves (with punctures) is given.