Effective calculation of the geometric height and the Bogomolov conjecture for hyperelliptic curves over function fields (Q1012032)

The generalised Bogomolov conjecture, proved by \textit{S.-W. Zhang} [Ann.~Math.~(2) 147, No.~1, 159--165 (1998; Zbl 0991.11034)], is as follows. Let \(A\) be an abelian variety over a number field \(K\), and let \(V\) be a closed subvariety of \(A\). Such a subvariety is called \textit{torsion} if it is the translate of an Abelian subvariety by a torsion point. Then the Bogomolov conjecture states that, if \(V\) is not torsion, then the \(\overline{K}\)-rational points of sufficiently small Néron-Tate height are not Zariski-dense in \(V\). The current article studies the analogous problem over function fields, in the case when \(V\) is a semistable hyperelliptic curve embedded in its Jacobian. The result obtained is effective, in that it gives an effectively computable bound for the implied constant in the conjecture. The author uses known results to reduce the problem to the calculation of \textit{admissible constants} for graphs arising from the bad fibres of the curve, and most of the work in this article goes into computing these admissible constants. In Section~1, the author recalls various definitions from graph theory, including admissible constants. It is then shown how to apply this to the graphs of components arising from a semistable fibration of curves. Section~2 is devoted to so-called hyperelliptic graphs, which are certain graphs equipped with an involution, and in Section~3 the author calculates the admissible constants for hyperelliptic graphs, culminating in an explicit formula given in Theorem~3.14. Finally, in Section~4 these results are applied to give an explicit bound for the Bogomolov conjecture, stated in Theorem~4.1.