Elkies proposed a procedure for constructing explicit towers of curves, and gave two towers of Shimura curves as relevant examples. In this paper, we present a new explicit tower of Shimura curves constructed by using this procedure.
Let us consider an algebraic function field defined over a finite Galois extension $K$ of a perfect field $k$. We give some conditions allowing the descent of the definition field of the algebraic function field from $K$ to $k$. We apply these results to the descent of the definition field of a tower of function fields.We give explicitly the equations of the intermediate steps of an Artin-Schreier type extension reduced from $F_{q^2}$ to $F_q$. By applying these results to a completed Garcia-Stichtenoths tower we improve the upper bounds and the upper asymptotic bounds of the bilinear complexity of the multiplication in finite fields.
We study the Jacobian $J$ of the smooth projective curve $C$ of genus $r-1$ with affine model $y^r = x^{r-1}(x + 1)(x + t)$ over the function field $mathbb{F}_p(t)$, when $p$ is prime and $rge 2$ is an integer prime to $p$. When $q$ is a power of $p$ and $d$ is a positive integer, we compute the $L$-function of $J$ over $mathbb{F}_q(t^{1/d})$ and show that the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture holds for $J$ over $mathbb{F}_q(t^{1/d})$. When $d$ is divisible by $r$ and of the form $p^ u +1$, and $K_d := mathbb{F}_p(mu_d,t^{1/d})$, we write down explicit points in $J(K_d)$, show that they generate a subgroup $V$ of rank $(r-1)(d-2)$ whose index in $J(K_d)$ is finite and a power of $p$, and show that the order of the Tate-Shafarevich group of $J$ over $K_d$ is $[J(K_d):V]^2$. When $r>2$, we prove that the new part of $J$ is isogenous over $overline{mathbb{F}_p(t)}$ to the square of a simple abelian variety of dimension $phi(r)/2$ with endomorphism algebra $mathbb{Z}[mu_r]^+$. For a prime $ell$ with $ell mid pr$, we prove that $J[ell](L)={0}$ for any abelian extension $L$ of $overline{mathbb{F}}_p(t)$.
This article is an overview of the vanishing cycles method in number theory over function fields. We first explain how this works in detail in a toy example, and then give three examples which are relevant to current research. The focus will be a general explanation of which sorts of problems this method can be applied to.
We extend to large contexts pertaining to Shimura varieties of Hodge type a result of Zink on the existence of lifts to characteristic 0 of suitable representatives of certain isogeny classes of abelian varieties endowed with Frobenius and other endomorphisms over $dbF_{p^q}$, whose $p$-divisible groups in mixed characteristic $(0,p)$ are with complex multiplication.
We prove two theorems concerning isogenies of elliptic curves over function fields. The first one describes the variation of the height of the $j$-invariant in an isogeny class. The second one is an isogeny estimate, providing an explicit bound on the degree of a minimal isogeny between two isogenous elliptic curves. We also give several corollaries of these two results.