Optimal affine reparametrization of rational curves

Abstract: In this paper we present three related results on the subject of fields of parametrization. Let C be a rational curve over a field of characteristic zero. Let K be a field finitely generated over Q, such that it is a field of definition of C but not a field of parametrization. It is known that there are quadratic extensions of K that parametrize C. First, we prove that there are infinitely many quadratic extensions of K that are fields of parametrization of C. As a consequence, we prove that the witness variety, that appear in the context of the parametric Weil's descente method, is always a special curve related to algebraic extensions, called hypercircle. It is possible that the witness variety is not a hypercircle for the given extension, but for an alternative one. We use these two facts to present an algorithm to solve the following optimal reparametrization problem. Given a birational parametrization f(t) of a curve C, compute the affine reparametrization at+b such f(at+b) has coefficients over a field as small as possible. The main advantage of this algorithm is that it does not need to compute any rational point on the curve.

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Let \({\mathbb K}\) be a characteristic zero field, and let \({\mathcal C}\) be a rational curve in \({\mathbb F}^N\) (\(N\) arbitrary), where \({\mathbb F}\) is the algebraic closure of \({\mathbb K}\). Assume that \({\mathcal C}\) is parametrized by means of a birational parametrization \(\phi(t)\) with coefficients over an algebraic extension \({\mathbb K}[\alpha]\) over \({\mathbb K}\). In this situation, the paper proposes an algorithm to solve the optimization problem of computing the affine reparametrization \(t\to at+b\) such that \(\phi(at+b)\) has coefficients over an extension of \({\mathbb K}\) with algebraic degree as small as possible. The algorithm makes use of the notion of \textit{hypercircle}, related to the so-called parametric version of Weil's descent method.

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