English

Classification of torsion of elliptic curves over quartic fields

Number Theory 2025-10-14 v2 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

Let EE be an elliptic curve over a quartic field KK. By the Mordell-Weil theorem, E(K)E(K) is a finitely generated group. We determine all the possibilities for the torsion group E(K)torE(K)_{tor} where KK ranges over all quartic fields KK and EE ranges over all elliptic curves over KK. We show that there are no sporadic torsion groups, or in other words, that all torsion groups either do not appear or they appear for infinitely many non-isomorphic elliptic curves EE. Proving this requires showing that numerous modular curves X1(m,n)X_1(m,n) have no non-cuspidal degree 44 points. We deal with almost all the curves using one of 3 methods: a method for the rank 0 cases requiring no computation; the Hecke sieve, a local method requiring computer-assisted computations; and the global method, an argument for the positive rank cases also requiring no computation. We deal with the handful of remaining cases using ad hoc methods.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.16016,
  title  = {Classification of torsion of elliptic curves over quartic fields},
  author = {Maarten Derickx and Filip Najman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.16016},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

31 pages, discussion for higher degrees added in v2