Growth of Selmer rank in nonabelian extensions of number fields (Q935194): Difference between revisions

This article extends the results obtained by the authors in [Ann. Math. (2) 166, No. 2, 579--612 (2007; Zbl 1219.11084)]: let \(E\) be an elliptic curve defined over a number field \(k\), and let \(F/k\) be a Galois extension of degree \(2p^n\), where \(p\) is an odd prime. Let \(K\) denote the unique quadratic subextenion of \(F/k\); then \(G = \text{Gal}(F/K)\) is the \(p\)-Sylow subgroup of the Galois group of \(F/k\). Choose an involution \(c \in \text{Gal}(F/k)\) lifting the nontrivial automorphism of \(K/k\), and let \(G^+\) be the subgroup of \(G\) consisting of elements commuting with \(c\). The main result of this article states (under mild conditions on \(E\)) that if the \(\mathbb Q_p\)-dimension of the \(p\)-Selmer vector spaces \({\mathcal S}_p(E/K)\) is odd, then the \(\mathbb Q_p[G]\)-module \({\mathcal S}_p(E/F)\) contains a copy of the representation space \(\mathbb Q_p[G/G^+]\) and thus has dimension at least \([G:G+]\). In the case where \(F/K\) is abelian, this was proved in the article cited above; the proof for general \(p\)-groups uses this result and some elementary representation theory of \(p\)-groups. The second part of this article gives various applications; it is shown, for example, that the Mordell-Weil rank of certain elliptic curves is unbounded in infinite \(p\)-class field towers.