English

Elliptic curves in game theory

Algebraic Geometry 2025-07-14 v2

Abstract

We investigate Spohn curves, the algebro-geometric models of totally mixed dependency equilibria for 2×22 \times 2 normal-form games. These curves arise as the intersection of two quadrics in P3\mathbb{P}^3 and are generically elliptic curves. We examine the reduction of Spohn curves to plane curves, providing a full classification of conditions under which they are reducible. Notably, we prove that the real points are dense on the Spohn curve in all cases, which is relevant for applications. These computations are further supported by Macaulay2 and stored in Mathrepo. We review methods to compute the jj-invariants of elliptic curves arising as the intersection of quadrics in P3\mathbb P^3 which we apply to the case of Spohn curves aimed at game theorists. We propose a definition of equivalence of generic 2×22\times 2 games based on the jj-invariant of the Spohn curve.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.14612,
  title  = {Elliptic curves in game theory},
  author = {Abhiram Kidambi and Elke Neuhaus and Irem Portakal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.14612},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

For the associated Mathrepo page see https://mathrepo.mis.mpg.de/elliptic_curves_game_theory/

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:16:28.678Z