Jacobi sums, Fermat Jacobians, and ranks of abelian varieties over towers of function fields (Q2459331)

The author studies the ranks of abelian varieties over a rational function field \(k(t)\) in the towers \(k(t^{1/d})\), especially in the towers \(\bar{\mathbb{F}}_q(t^{1/d})\) where \(\mathbb{F}_q\) is a finite field. The paper begins with some results on the distribution of Gauss and Jacobi sums and on the Fermat curves and Fermat Jacobians which are further used to produce the examples of abelian varieties of bounded ranks in tower of function fields, also the estimates obtained may be of independent interest. Let \(J_d\) be the Jacobian of the Fermat curve \(F_d : \sum^2_{i=0}x_i^d = 0\). One says that an abelian variety \(A\) appears in \(J_d\) with multiplicity \(m\) if \(m\) is the largest integer such that there is a homomorphism \(A^m \to J_d\) with finite kernel. The author proves that if \(\mathrm{char}\,k = 0\), then for every positive integer \(g\), only finitely many \(k\)-isogeny classes of abelian varieties of dimension \(\leq g\) appear in \(J_d\) as \(d\) varies through all positive integers. If \(A\) is an abelian variety over \(k\), then the multiplicity with which \(A\) appears in \(J_d\) is bounded by a constant depending only on the dimension of \(A\). If \(\mathrm{char}\,k = p >0\) this boundedness remains valid if \(d\) varies through all positive integers prime to \(p\), and abelian varieties have positive \(p\)-rank. Using these results the author presents examples of isotrivial abelian varieties with bounded ranks in towers of function fields. Let \(A_0\) be an abelian variety over a field \(k\). If \(\mathrm{char}\,k =p > 0\), assume that \(A_0\) is isogenous to a product of simple abelian varieties each with positive \(p\)-rank. Let \(A = A_0 \times_k k(t)\) and let \(A'\) be the twist of \(A\) by the quadratic extension \(k(u)/k(t)\) where \(u\) satisfies \(u^2 = t-1\) if the characteristic of \(k\) is not 2 and \(u^2+u=t\) if the characteristic of \(k\) is 2. Then the rank of the Mordell-Weil group \(A'(k(t^{1/d}))\) is bounded as \(d\) varies through all positive integers relatively prime to the characteristic of \(k\). Finally, the author gives examples of non-isotrivial elliptic curves with trivial ranks in towers \(\bar{\mathbb{F}}_p(t^{1/d})\). Let \(E\) be the elliptic curve with affine equation \(y^2+xy = x^3-t\) over \(\mathbb{F}_p(t)\), \(S\) be the set of primes \(\ell > 3\) such that \(p \equiv 1 \pmod \ell\). If \(d\) is a product of powers of primes from \(S\), then the rank of \(E(\bar{\mathbb{F}}(t^{1/d}))\) is zero. If \(p \in \{2,3,5,7,11\}\), then there exists an elliptic curve \(E\) over \(\bar{\mathbb{F}}_p(t)\) with \(j \notin \mathbb{F}_p\) such that the rank of \(E(\bar{\mathbb{F}}(t^{1/d}))\) is zero for all positive integers \(d\) prime to \(p\).