Heegner Points and the Rank of Elliptic Curves over Large Extensions of Global Fields

Letkbe a global field,a separable closure ofk, andGkthe absolute Galois groupofoverk. For everyσ ∈ Gk, letbe the fixed subfield ofunderσ. LetE/kbe an elliptic curve overk. It is known that the Mordell–Weil grouphas infinite rank. We present a new proof of this fact in the following two cases. First, when k is a global function field of odd characteristic andEis parametrized by a Drinfeld modular curve, and secondly whenkis a totally real number field andE/kis parametrized by a Shimura curve. In both cases our approach uses the non-triviality of a sequence of Heegner points onEdefined over ring class fields.

Characteristic classes of Galois representations

Let K be a field with char if K≠2 and let Ks denote the separable closure of K and GK the Galois group of the extension Ks/K. If K⊂L is a finite extension and ρ:GL↦Or(R) a (continuous) real representation of GL we have a map ρ:BGL→BO which is used to define Stiefel–Whitney classes wi(ρ) = ρ*(wi). In general if f is any element of H*(BO; ℤ/2) we denote by f(ρ) the characteristic class ρ*(f). Now letbe a genus (see e.g. [9]), for example the total Stiefel–Whitney class w = 1+w1+w2 + … Let K⊂L and ρ be as above and let denote the multiplicative transfer (see e.g. [3, 5, 2, 14, 15]). Our principal result is a generalization of theorem 1 of [3]

Stiefel-Whitney Classes of a Symmetric Bilinear Form — A Formula of Serre

Let K be a field of characteristic different from two. Let L be a finite separable extension of K. If is the separable closure of K, we have a continuous homomorphism π : Ga(/K) → ∑n(n - [L : K]). We give a very short proof of Serre's formula which evaluates the Hasse-Witt invariant of a symmetric bilinear form, transferred from L, in terms of the topological Stiefel-Whitney classes of IT.

Model-complete theories of e-free Ax fields

This paper's goal is to determine which complete theories of perfect, e-free Ax fields are model-complete. A field K is e-free for a positive integer e if the Galois group g(KS∣K), where Ks is the separable closure of K, is an e-free, profinite group. A perfect field K is pseudo-algebraically closed if each nonvoid, absolutely irreducible variety defined over K has a K-rational point. A perfect, pseudo-algebraically closed field is called an Ax field. The main theorem isA complete theory of e-free Ax fields is model-complete if and only if its field of absolute numbers is e-free.The sufficiency of the latter condition is an easy consequence of a result of Moshe Jarden and Ursel Kiehne [10] and has been noted independently by A. Macintyre and K. McKenna and undoubtedly by others as well. Consequently the necessity of the latter condition is the interesting part of this paper.James Ax [3] initiated the investigation of 1-free Ax fields. He proved that these fields, which he called pseudo-finite fields, are precisely the infinite models of the theory of finite fields. He [3] also presented examples of perfect, 1-free fields which are not pseudo-algebraically closed and an example of a 1-free Ax field whose complete theory is not model-complete. Moshe Jarden [5] showed that the first examples are isolated cases in that almost all, perfect, 1-free, algebraic extensions of a denumerable, Hilbertian field are pseudo-algebraically closed. The results in this paper show that the second example is also an isolated case in that almost all complete theories of 1-free Ax fields are model-complete.

Stable Extensions and Fields with the Global Density Property

For a field M we denote by Ms and respectively the separable closure and the algebraic closure of M. If F is a variety which is defined over M, then we denote by V(M) the set of all if-rational points of V. M is said to be pseudo-algebraically closed (PAC) field, if V(M) ≠ θ for every non-void abstract variety V defined over M. It can be shown that then is dense in V(M) in the Zariski M -topology.