Computing the Cassels-Tate pairing on the 2-Selmer group of a genus 2 Jacobian

We describe a method for computing the Cassels-Tate pairing on the 2-Selmer group of the Jacobian of a genus 2 curve. This can be used to improve the upper bound coming from 2-descent for the rank of the group of rational points on the Jacobian. Our method remains practical regardless of the Galois action on the Weierstrass points of the genus 2 curve. It does however depend on being able to find a rational point on a certain twisted Kummer surface. The latter does not appear to be a severe restriction in practice. In particular, we have used our method to unconditionally determine the ranks of all genus 2 Jacobians in the L-functions and modular forms database (LMFDB).

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Publication Details

Journal
Apollo (University of Cambridge)
Published
2025-12-23
DOI
https://doi.org/10.17863/cam.124264
Primary Topic
Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Computing the Cassels-Tate pairing on the 2-Selmer group of a genus 2 Jacobian

Tom Fisher, Jiali Yan
Apollo (University of Cambridge)
Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory
article

Computing the Cassels-Tate pairing on the 2-Selmer group of a genus 2 Jacobian

Tom Fisher, Jiali Yan
article en

Abstract

We describe a method for computing the Cassels-Tate pairing on the 2-Selmer group of the Jacobian of a genus 2 curve. This can be used to improve the upper bound coming from 2-descent for the rank of the group of rational points on the Jacobian. Our method remains practical regardless of the Galois action on the Weierstrass points of the genus 2 curve. It does however depend on being able to find a rational point on a certain twisted Kummer surface. The latter does not appear to be a severe restriction in practice. In particular, we have used our method to unconditionally determine the ranks of all genus 2 Jacobians in the L-functions and modular forms database (LMFDB).

Apollo (University of Cambridge)
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Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory
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