Decompositions of an Abelian surface and quadratic forms (Q646403)

If an abelian surface \(A\) is isomorphic to a product of elliptic curves then the Picard number \(\rho(A)\geq 2\), but if \(\rho(A)>2\) then the decomposition of \(A\) as a product need not be unique. \textit{T. Hayashida} [Natur. Sci. Rep. Ochanomizu Univ. 16, 9--19 (1965; Zbl 0151.27501)] considered the case \(\rho(A)=3\) and \textit{T. Shioda} and \textit{Mitani} [Mannheimer Arbeitstagung, Lect. Notes Math. 412, 259--287 (1974; Zbl 0302.14011] considered the case \(\rho(A)=4\), when \(A\) is always a product. This paper deals with the problem systematically, recovering all the previous results and more. The main idea is to study the transcendental lattice \(T_A\), using the discriminant form. The end result is a formula for the numbers \(\delta(A)\) and \(\widetilde\delta(A)\) of decompositions of \(A\), disregarding or taking into account the order of the factors. The genus and class number of \(T_A\) and the order of the finite orthogonal group of the discriminant form \(D_{T_A}\) play a role, and there are two exceptional cases, when \(T_A=\begin{pmatrix} 2n&0\cr 0&2n\end{pmatrix}\) and when \(T_A=\begin{pmatrix} 2n&n\cr n&2n\end{pmatrix}\). For \(\rho(A)=3\) one has \(\widetilde\delta(A)=2^{\tau(-\det T_A)}\) (where \(\tau(k)\) is the number of prime divisors of \(k\)). For \(\rho(A)=4\) and \(T_A\) not as above, one has \(2\widetilde\delta(A)=|{\mathcal G}_A|\cdot |{\displaystyle{{O}}}(D_{T_A})|\), where \(|{\mathcal G}_A|\) is the oriented class number.