Counting elliptic curves with prescribed torsion (Q2398718): Difference between revisions

Let \(E/\mathbb{Q}\) be an elliptic curve with Weierstrass (minimal) equation \(y^2=x^3+Ax+B\) and let \(E(\mathbb{Q})\simeq\mathbb{Z}^r\oplus E(\mathbb{Q})_{\mathrm{tors}}\) be its subgroup of rational points. A theorem of Mazur shows that \(E(\mathbb{Q})_{\mathrm{tors}}\) has to be one of the following groups: \[ \mathbb{Z}/N\;\text{for}\;1\leqslant N\leqslant 10\;\text{or}\;N=12 \] \[ \mathbb{Z}/2\times\mathbb{Z}/N\;\text{for}\;N=2,4,6,8\,. \] Let \(G\) be any of the groups above and let \(N_G(X)\) be the number of isomorphism classes of elliptic curves \(E\) with (naive) height \(\text{ht}(E):=\max\{|A|^3,B^2\,\}\leqslant X\) and such that \(E(\mathbb{Q})_{\mathrm{tors}}\simeq G\). The paper shows that \(N_G(X)\) is approximately \(X^{1/d(G)}\) (for some explicit \(d(G)\)) and, in particular, that \[ \lim_{X\rightarrow +\infty} \frac{\log N_G(X)}{\log X} =\frac{1}{d(G)}\,. \] The authors introduce families of elliptic curves \(\mathcal{E}_t: y^2=x^3+f(t)x+g(t)\) for \(f(t),g(t)\in\mathbb{Q}(t)\) satisfying a few hypotheses on their degrees and provide lower and upper bounds of type \(c_1X^{\alpha(f,g)}\leqslant N(X) \leqslant c_2X^{\alpha(f,g)}\) for the number \(N(X)\) of isomorphism classes of elliptic curves isomorphic to \(\mathcal{E}_t\) for some specialization \(t\in \mathbb{Q}\). Then, for the groups \(G\) such that \(2G\neq 0\), they show families \(\mathcal{E}_{G,t}: y^2=x^3+f_G(t)x+g_G(t)\) encoding all (isomorphism classes of) elliptic curves \(E\) such that \(E(\mathbb{Q})_{\mathrm{tors}}\supseteq G\). For those families \(\alpha(f_G,g_G)=\frac{1}{d(G)}\) and this, together with the bounds above, leads to the main theorem. The proof for the remaining \(G\) comes from more direct calculations (using the presence of rational 2-torsion points).