Heron triangles via elliptic curves (Q2477902)

Triangles with rational sides (denoted \(a\), \(b\), \(c\)) and area are known as Heron triangles. The paper deals with the problem of finding an Heron triangle of given area \(n\in \mathbb{Q}\) (if one finds a right triangle then \(n\) is known as congruent number). The main result shows that Heron triangles of area \(n\) exist if and only if for some nonzero rational \(\tau\) the elliptic curve \(E^{(n)}_\tau: y^2=x(x-n\tau)(x-n\tau^{-1})\) has a nontrivial rational point not of order 2. Mainly using explicit formulas and direct computations the authors also describe conditions for the triangle to be isosceles and the set of rational torsion points for the curves \(E^{(n)}_\tau\) (which is always \(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}\times \mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}\) or \(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}\times \mathbb{Z}/4\mathbb{Z}\)), thus providing improvements and new proofs of some known results (cited in the references). The paper ends with tables showing for any \(1\leq n\leq 50\) an Heron triangle and generators for the free part of \(E^{(n)}_\tau(\mathbb{Q})\) (computations done using Magma).