English

Fields generated by points on superelliptic curves

Number Theory 2025-09-17 v2

Abstract

We give an asymptotic lower bound on the number of field extensions generated by algebraic points on superelliptic curves over Q\mathbb{Q} with fixed degree nn and discriminant bounded by XX. For CC a fixed such curve given by an affine equation ym=f(x)y^m = f(x) where m2m \geq 2 and d=deg f(x)md= \mathrm{deg}\ f (x) \geq m, we find that for all degrees nn divisible by gcd(m,d)\gcd(m, d) and sufficiently large, the number of such fields is asymptotically bounded below by XδnX^{\delta_n}, where δn1/m2\delta_n \to 1/m^2 as nn \to \infty. We then give geometric heuristics suggesting that for n not divisible by gcd(m,d)\gcd(m, d), degree nn points may be less abundant than those for which nn is divisible by gcd(m,d)\gcd(m,d) and provide an example of conditions under which a curve is known to have finitely many points of certain degrees.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2103.16672,
  title  = {Fields generated by points on superelliptic curves},
  author = {Lea Beneish and Christopher Keyes},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.16672},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

30 pages, accepted for publication in Journal of Number Theory

R2 v1 2026-06-24T00:42:41.710Z