The rank of elliptic surfaces in unramified abelian towers (Q4832103)

Let \(K\) be a number field, \(C\) a curve defined over \(K\) and \(E\) a nonconstant elliptic curve defined over the function field \(K(C)\) of \(C\). The main author's purpose is to get a strong upper bound for the rank of \(E(K(C'))\) for certain finite unramified coverings \(C'\to C\), assuming the truth of the Tate conjecture for some elliptic surfaces. Let \({\mathcal E}\to C\) be the elliptic surface defined over \(K\) associated to \(E\) as described in the third chapter of the author's book [Advanced topics in the arithmetic of elliptic curves. New York: Springer (1994; Zbl 0911.14015)]. Let \(C' \to C\) be a finite unramified covering defined over \(K\) and \({\mathcal E}={\mathcal E}\times_C C'\) the corresponding elliptic surface over \(C'\). Let \({\mathfrak N}({\mathcal E}')\) be the conductor of \({\mathcal E}'\). It is a divisor on \(C'\). Let us denote its degree by \(|{\mathfrak N}{({\mathcal E}')}|\). Let \(\overline K\) be an algebraic closure of \(K\), \(G_K\) the Galois group \(\text{Gal}(\overline K/K)\) and \(A = \text{Aut}\,_{\overline K}(C'/C)\) the geometric automorphism group of the covering. The group \(G_K\) acts on \(A\). The main result obtained by the author is the following: Theorem. Assume that the group \(A\) is abelian and that the Tate conjecture is true for the elliptic surface \({\mathcal E}'\). Let \(g'\) be the genus of the curve \(C'\). Then, we have \[ \text{rank\,}E(K(C')) \leq \frac{(\text{Number of }G_K\text{ orbits of }A)}{|A|}\cdot (|{\mathfrak N}(E')|+4g' -4). \] The author mentions that there is an elementary geometric upper bound for the rank of \(E(K(C'))\), coming from cohomological considerations, which is given by the inequality \[ \text{rank\,}E(K(C'))\leq |{\mathfrak N}{{\mathcal E}')}| + 4g'-4, \] so that the gain in the theorem comes from the nontrivial action of \(G_K\) on \(A\). As a particular case of the theorem, he considers the situation where \(C' = C\) is an elliptic curve over \(K\) and he takes the unramified abelian covers \([n]:C\to C\) given by the multiplication-by-\(n\) maps. In this case, the automorphism group \(A\) is identified with the group of the \(n\)-torsion points of \(C\), with the natural action of \(G_K\). J.-P. Serre has proved in 1972 that the action of \(G_K\) on the \(n\)-torsion points of an elliptic curve over \(K\) is highly nontrivial as \(n\) increases. This provides an interesting illustration of the theorem. Let \(K_n\) be the extension field of \(K(C)\) corresponding to the map \([n]: C\to C\) and \({\mathcal E}_n\) the elliptic surface associated to the elliptic curve \(E/K_n\). Assuming that the Tate conjecture is true for \({\mathcal E}_n\), the author proves that there is a constant \(\kappa = \kappa(K,C,{\mathcal E}) > 0\) such that, for all sufficiently large \(n\), we have \[ \text{rank\,}E(K_n) \leq |{\mathfrak N}({\mathcal E}_n)|^{\kappa/\log\log n}=|n^2{\mathfrak N}({\mathcal E})|^{\kappa\log\log n}. \] He also gets a result concerning the average rank of \(E(K_n)\).