English

Constructing congruent number elliptic curves using 2-descent

Number Theory 2020-06-16 v1

Abstract

A positive integer that is the area of some rational right triangle is called a congruent number. In an algebraic point of view, being a congruent number means satisfying a system of equations. As early as the 1800s, it is understood that if nn is a congruent number, then the equation nm2=uv(u2v2)nm^2 = uv(u^2 - v^2) has a solution in Z\mathbb{Z}. Using the relation between congruent numbers and elliptic curves En:y2=x3n2xE_n: y^2 = x^3 - n^2 x which was established in the 1900s, we will prove that the converse of this two century-old result holds as well. In addition to this, we present another proof of the converse using the method of 2-descent. Towards the end of this paper, we demonstrate how one can use our proof to construct subfamilies of EnE_n with rank at least 2 and 3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.08113,
  title  = {Constructing congruent number elliptic curves using 2-descent},
  author = {Raiza Corpuz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.08113},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

19 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T16:19:20.240Z