Elliptic subcovers of a curve of genus 2. I: The isogeny defect (Q2322856)

Let \(C\) be a curve of genus 2 over a field \(K\). In this paper, the set of equivalence classes of the elliptic subcovers \(f\colon C\to E\) of degree \(N\) is shown to correspond bijectively to the set of primitive representations of \(N^2\) by a certain integral positive definite quadratic form \(q_C\) called the \textit{refined Humbert invariant}. The method depends on the knowledge of an ``\(N\)-presentation \((E,E_f^\bot,\psi_f)\) of \(C/K\)'' arising from any elliptic subcover \(C\to E\) of degree \(N\) to which an elliptic divisor of the Jacobian variety \(J_C\) is associated. The domain of \(q_C\) is a sub-lattice of Néron-Severi group of \(C\otimes \bar K\) modulo the line generated by the theta divisor. To compute \(q_C\) explicitly in the accompanied work [J. Number Theory 193, 302--335 (2018; Zbl 1451.14065)], the author introduces an important invariant called the \textit{isogeny defect} \(m_\psi\in \mathbb{N}\) for any \(N\)-presentation \((E,E',\psi)\) of \(C/K\) and computes the discriminant (determinant) of \(q_C\) in terms of \(m_\psi\) together with the degree quadratic form on \(\mathrm{Hom}(E,E')\).