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Wednesday, 07 July 2010

Mazur's theorem

Mazur's theorem tells us that the points of finite order on an elliptic curve over the rationals has to have a particular structure. In particular, if Etors is the subgroup of E(Q) of points of finite order then Etors has to have one of the following forms:

1. Zn, a cyclic group of order n where 1≤n≤10 or n = 12

2. Z2 x Z2n, the direct product of a cyclic group of order 2 with one of order 2n for 1≤n≤4

There are examples of curves for each one of these possibilities in Exercise 8.12 on p. 238 of Silverman's The Arithmetic of Elliptic Curves.

I was curious what each of these curves looked like, so I decided to graph both the curves and the points of Etors. Some of the cases were interesting. Others were not.

In any case, here's what I found.

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