Arithmetic statistics of Prym surfaces

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Abstract: We consider a family of abelian surfaces over mathbbQ arising as Prym varieties of double covers of genus-1 curves by genus-3 curves. These abelian surfaces carry a polarization of type (1,2) and we show that the average size of the Selmer group of this polarization equals 3. Moreover we show that the average size of the 2-Selmer group of the abelian surfaces in the same family is bounded above by 5. This implies an upper bound on the average rank of these Prym varieties, and gives evidence for the heuristics of Poonen and Rains for a family of abelian varieties which are not principally polarized. The proof is a combination of an analysis of the Lie algebra embedding F4subsetE6, invariant theory, a classical geometric construction due to Pantazis, a study of N'eron component groups of Prym surfaces and Bhargava's orbit-counting techniques.


For an isogeny \(\lambda: A\to B\) of abelian varieties over \(\mathbb{Q}\), the \(\lambda\)-Selmer group of \(A\) is defined by \(\mathrm{Sel}_{\lambda} A:=\mathrm{ker}(H^1(\mathbb{Q},A[\lambda])\to \prod_{\upsilon} H^1(\mathbb{Q}_{\upsilon}, A))\) where \(A[\lambda]\) is the kernel of \(\lambda\), the cohomology groups are Galois cohomology and the product runs over all places \({\upsilon}\) over \(\mathbb{Q}\). Let \(\mathcal{E}\subset\mathbb{Z}^4\) be the subset of \(4\)-tuples of integers \(b=(p_2,p_6,p_8,p_{12})\) such that the projective closure of the equation \(y^4+p_2xy^2+p_6y^2=x^3+p_8x+p_{12}\) defines a smooth genus \(3\) curve \(C_b\) over \(\mathbb{Q}\). The quotient of \(C_b\) by the involution \((x,y)\mapsto (x,-y)\) defines an elliptic curve \(E_b: y^2+p_2xy+p_6y=x^3+p_8x+p_{12}\) over \(\mathbb{Q}\). Let \(J_b\) be the Jacobian variety of \(C_b\) and let \(P_b\) be the kernel of the norm map \(f_*: J_b\to E_b\). Then \(P_b\) is an abelian surface with a polarization \(\rho: P_b\to P_v^{\vee}\) of type \((1,2)\). \(P_b\) is a Prym variety associated to the double cover \(C_b\to E_b\). For \(b\in\mathcal{E}\), define the height of \(b\) as \(\mathrm{ht}(b)=\max|p_i(b)|^{1/i}\). For every \(X\in\mathbb{R}_{>0}\), the set \(\{b\in\mathcal{E}| \mathrm{ht}(b)<X\}\) is known to be finite. The main results of this paper are formulated in the following theorems. Theorem 1. The average size of \(\mathrm{Sel}_{\rho} P_b\) for \(b\in\mathcal{E}\), when ordered bu height, equals \(3\). Theorem 2. The average size of \(\mathrm{Sel}_2 P_b\) for \(b\in\mathcal{E}\), when ordered by height, is bounded above by \(5\). (Conjecturally it is equal to \(5\).) Corollary 1. The average rank of \(P_b\) for \(b\in\mathcal{E}\), when ordered by height, is bounded above by \(5/2\). Corollary 2. The average rank of \(J_b\) for \(b\in\mathcal{E}\), when ordered by height, is \(5/2+0.885=3.385.\) The proof is a combination of an analysis of the Lie algebra embedding \(F_4\subset E_6\), invariant theory, a classical geometric construction due to Pantazis, a study of Néron component group of Prym surfaces and Bhargava's orbit-counting techniques. The heart of the matter is, for each of the isogenies \(\rho\) and \([2]\), to find the right representation of a reductive group over \(\mathbb{Q}\) whose integral orbits parametrize Selmer elements and then count those orbits using the geometry-of-numbers techniques of Bhargava.



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