Friday, 28 January 2011

nt.number theory - Writing down minimal Weierstrass equations

Let E be an elliptic curve over mathbbQp. It is possible that E has bad reduction but then when you see E as a curve over a finite extension K of mathbbQp, it obtains good reduction. Let v be the valuation defined on K and R its valuation ring. I was interested in checking E has good reduction over K by hand, using the Weierstrass equation. What that amounts to then is writing down the Weierstrass equation y2+a1xy+a3y=x3+a2x2+a4x+a6 with the aiinR and considering changes of coordinates x=u2x+r and y=u3y+u2sx+t for u,r,s,tinR in hopes of finding an equation with v(Delta) minimized, subject to each ai being in R. There are certain congruence conditions that guarantee minimality of the new equation, e.g. v(Delta)<12, which only depend on the choice of u. However, guaranteeing the new equation has coefficients in R requires solving other congruence relations depending on r,s and t, e.g. you need v(a1+2s)geqv(u) (because a1=u1(a1+2s)). The few times I have done this by hand, I have just had to look at the equations and make some choices until something worked out.



My question is whether or not there exists a general method for obtaining a good change of coordinates u,r,s,t and if not, then how do people go about writing down minimal Weierstrass models. I can't imagine there should be general methods for solving the system of non-linear congruences (higher powers of u,r,s and t appear in the other congruences) in the ring R, but if there is then I would also be interested in understanding that as well.

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