English

Local-global principles for Weil-Ch\^atelet divisibility in positive characteristic

Number Theory 2017-10-11 v2

Abstract

We extend existing results characterizing Weil-Ch\^atelet divisibility of locally trivial torsors over number fields to global fields of positive characteristic. Building on work of Gonz\'alez-Avil\'es and Tan, we characterize when local-global divisibility holds in such contexts, providing examples showing that these results are optimal. We give an example of an elliptic curve over a global field of characteristic 22 containing a rational point which is locally divisible by 88, but is not divisible by 88 as well as examples showing that the analogous local-global principle for divisibility in the Weil-Ch\^atelet group can also fail.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1608.01371,
  title  = {Local-global principles for Weil-Ch\^atelet divisibility in positive characteristic},
  author = {Brendan Creutz and José Felipe Voloch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.01371},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

v2: incorporates helpful feedback from the community