Geometry Seminar

Date: February 7, 2020

Time: 4:00PM - 5:00PM

Location: BLOC 628

Speaker: Changho Han, University of Georgia

Title: Counting hyperelliptic curves over global fields of bounded height via hyperelliptic fibrations

Abstract: A hyperelliptic curve y^2=f(x) with coefficients in a global field (such as Q) comes equipped with a natural invariant called the height of the discriminant. Then, it is a natural question to find the asymptotic behavior of a function counting the number of reasonably behaving hyperelliptic curves with bounded height B. However, this problem turns out to be wide open if the base field is a number field. By jointly working with Junyong Park, we instead consider this problem for function fields, namely F_q(t) the generic point of a projective line over F_q. In this case, we can reinterpret hyperelliptic curves as hyperelliptic fibrations over P^1, allowing us to use both geometry of algebraic surfaces and arithmetic of the space of maps from P^1 into moduli spaces of hyperelliptic curves. By using this observation, I will illustrate the counting function over F_q(t) (which heuristically expect to look similar to that of number fields) and related results along the way (such as motive/point count of relevant moduli spaces and birational geometry involved).