Wednesday, 15 December 2010

nt.number theory - Fermat's Bachet-Mordell Equation

Fermat once claimed that the only integral solutions to y2=x32 are (3,pm5).
Fermat knew Bachet's duplication formulas (more precisely, Bachet had a formula for computing what we call 2P), which for y2=x3+ax+b says
x2P=fracx48bx4x3+4b=fracx4cdotfracx38bx3+b.



Using this formula it is easy to prove the following:



Consider the point P=(3,5) on the elliptic curve y2=x32.
The x-coordinate xn of [2]nP has a denominator divisible by
4n; in particular, [2]nP has integral coordinates only if n=0.



In fact, writing xn=pn/qn for coprime integers pn, qn, we find
xn+1=fracxn4cdotfracx3n+16x3n2=fracpn4qncdotfracp3n+16q3np3n2q3n.


Since pn is odd for nge1 and qn=4nu for some odd number u (use induction), we deduce that the power of 2 dividing qn+1 is 4 times that dividing qn.



My question is whether the general result that kP has integral affine coordinates if and only if k=pm1 can be proved along similarly simple lines. The modern proofs based on the group law, if I recall it correctly, use Baker's theorem on linear forms in logarithms.

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