Amicable Pairs and Aliquot Cycles for Elliptic Curves

An amicable pair for an elliptic curve E/Q is a pair of primes (p,q) of good reduction for E satisfying #E(Fp) = q and #E(Fq) = p. Aliquot cycles are analogously defined longer cycles. Although rare for non-CM curves, amicable pairs are – surprisingly – relatively abundant in the CM case. We present heuristics and conjectures for the frequency of amicable pairs and aliquot cycles, and some results for the CM case (including the especially intricate j=0 case). We present some open problems and computational challenges arising from this work. This is joint work with Joseph H. Silverman.

Date:
Speakers:
Kate Stange
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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      Jeff Running