A note on integral points on elliptic curves

DOI10.5802/JTNB.568MaRDI QIDQ2642785zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 4 September 2007

Published in Journal de Théorie des Nombres de Bordeaux (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0604097, http://www.numdam.org/item?id=JTNB_2006__18_3_707_0, https://eudml.org/doc/53548, http://www.emis.de/journals/JTNB/2006-3/article12.pdf

zbMATH Keywords

elliptic curves integral points

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Elliptic curves over global fields (11G05)

Abstract: We investigate a problem considered by Zagier and Elkies, of finding large integral points on elliptic curves. By writing down a generic polynomial solution and equating coefficients, we are led to suspect four extremal cases that still might have nondegenerate solutions. Each of these cases gives rise to a polynomial system of equations, the first being solved by Elkies in 1988 using the resultant methods of~Macsyma, with there being a unique rational nondegenerate solution. For the second case we found that resultants and/or Gr"obner bases were not very efficacious. Instead, at the suggestion of Elkies, we used multidimensional

p

-adic Newton iteration, and were able to find a nondegenerate solution, albeit over a quartic number field. Due to our methodology, we do not have much hope of proving that there are no other solutions. For the third case we found a solution in a nonic number field, but we were unable to make much progress with the fourth case. We make a few concluding comments and include an appendix from Elkies regarding his calculations and correspondence with Zagier.

Review text

Let \(E: y^2 = x^3 + Ax + B\) be an elliptic curve with integral coefficients \(A\), \(B\). For measuring the size of an integral point \((X,Y)\) on \(E\) one uses \(\rho = \log(X)/\log(\max( | A| ^{1/2},| B| ^{1/3}))\). A conjecture going back to Lang and Stark states that \(\rho \leq 10 + o(1)\) except for finitely many parametric families of elliptic curves. In 1988, Elkies (in a letter to Zagier, which is included as an appendix) constructed infinitely many examples with \(\rho \geq 12 - o(1)\). Elkies' approach leads to four extremal cases, which give rise to polynomial systems of equations. Elkies solved one of them using resultants; the other three cases are too complicated to solve even with the help of Gröbner bases, and Elkies suggested using multidimensional \(p\)-adic Newton iteration for attacking the remaining three cases. This is done by the author, who manages to find solutions in the second and the third case, leading to parametric families of elliptic curves defined over number fields of degree \(4\) and \(9\), respectively. The question whether there exist other solutions remains open.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(4)

Describes a project that uses

Uses Software

This page was built for publication: A note on integral points on elliptic curves

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2642785)