Pairs of Pythagorean triangles with given ratios between catheti
A Pythagorean triple is triad \((a,b,c)\) of positive integers such that \(a^2+b^2=c^2\). Clearly, each number \(a,b\) represents the length of a vertical side (``cathetus in Greek) of a right triangle and \(c\) is the length of its hypotenuse; this is a \textit{Pythagorean triangle}. Given two (distinct) such triples \((a,b,c)\) and \((A,B,C)\), the authors investigate the problem (``problem of the paper in this review) of whether there are infinitely many essentially different pairs of Pythagorean triples \((a',b',c'), (A',B',C')\) such that \[ \frac{A'}{a'} = \frac{A}{a}, \quad \frac{B'}{b'} = \frac{B}{b}. \qquad\mbox{(1)} \] ``Essentially different triples means that the corresponding Pythagorean triangles are not similar. Two cases are distinguished. The first case is when the given pair of Pythagorean triples satisfies \(Aa\neq Bb\). The investigation of the problem of the paper is cleverly reduced to questions concerning the elliptic curve \(E: y^2=x(x+A^2b^2)(x+a^2B^2)\). As a consequence, it is proved that (when \(Aa\neq Bb\)) there exist infinitely many non-similar pairs of Pythagorean triangles \((a',b'c'), (A',B',C')\) satisfying (1). The second case is when \(Aa=Bb\). A reasonable constraint is to consider only primitive triples, i.e. such that \(\gcd (a,b,c)=1\). Then, \(A=b, B=a\) and \(C=c\), hence the pair of initially given Pythagorean triples is \((a,b,c), (b,a,c)\). The problem of the paper is reduced to the that of the existence of infinitely many rational points on the elliptic curve \(E_{a,b}: y^2=x(x+a^4)(x+b^4)\). It is proved that there are infinitely many primitive Pythagorean triples \((a,b,c)\) such that \(E_{a,b}\) has positive rank. Note, however, that there are also Pythagorean triples \((a,b,c)\) such that \(E_{a,b}\) is of zero rank and a table of 45 such triples is given. The authors conjecture that, actually, there are infinitely many Pythagorean triples \((a,b,c)\) such that \(E_{a,b}\) is of zero rank. Finally the authors consider the following more difficult question: Given two positive rationals \(\mu\) and \(\nu\), does there exist a pair of Pythagorean triangles \((a,b,c), (A,B,C)\), satisfying \(A/a=\mu\) and \(B/b=\nu\)? The problem is reduced to the case in which \(\mu=1\) and then, the elliptic curve \(E_{\nu} : y^2=x(x+1)(x+\nu^2)\) comes into play. It is proved that, for every \(\bar{\nu}\in\mathbb{Q}^+\) there exist a pair of Pythagorean triples \((a,b,c), (A,B,C)\), with \(A=a, B=\nu b\) and \(\nu=\bar{\nu}s^2\) for some \(s\in\mathbb{Q}^+\). A corollary of this result is that that the set of positive rationals \(\nu\), such that \(E_{\nu}\) has positive rank, is dense in the set \(\mathbb{R}_{>0}\) with respect to the usual topology of \(\mathbb{R}\).
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