Genus 2 curves with bad reduction at one odd prime

Abstract: In this article we consider smooth projective curves

C

of genus two described by integral equations of the form

y^{2} = x h (x)

, where

h (x) i n m a t h b b Z [x]

is monic of degree

4

. It turns out that if

h (x)

is reducible, then the absolute discriminant of

C

can never be an odd prime, except when

h (x) = (x - b) g (x)

and

g (x)

is irreducible. In this case we obtain a complete description of such genus

2

curves. In fact, we prove that there are two one-parameter families

C_{t}^{i}

,

i = 1, 2

, of such curves such that if

C

is a genus two curve with an odd prime absolute discriminant, then

C

is

C_{t}^{i}

, for some

i

, and

t i n m a t h b b Z

. Moreover, we show that

C_{t}^{i}

has an odd prime absolute discriminant,

p

, if and only if a certain degree-

4

irreducible polynomial

f^{i} (t) i n m a t h b b Z [t]

takes the value

p

at

t

. Hence there are conjecturally infinitely many such curves. When

h (x)

is irreducible, we give explicit examples of one-parameter families of genus

2

curves

C_{t}

such that

C_{t}

has an odd prime absolute discriminant for conjecturally infinitely many integer values

t

.

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