Schaefer, Edward F. Computing a Selmer group of a Jacobian using functions on the curve. (English) Zbl 0889.11021 Math. Ann. 310, No. 3, 447-471 (1998); erratum 339, No. 1, 1 (2007). In general, algorithms for computing the Selmer group of the Jacobian of a curve have relied on either homogeneous spaces or functions on the curve. We present a theoretical analysis of algorithms which use functions on the curve, and show how to exploit special properties of curves to generate new Selmer group computation algorithms. The success of such an algorithm will be based on two criteria that we discuss. To illustrate the types of properties which can be exploited, we develop a \((1-\zeta_p)\)-Selmer group computation algorithm for the Jacobian of a curve of the form \(y^p= f(x)\), where \(p\) is a prime not dividing the degree of \(f\). We compute Mordell-Weil ranks of the Jacobians of three curves of this form. We also compute a 2-Selmer group for the Jacobian of a smooth plane quartic curve using bitangents of that curve, and use it to compute a Mordell-Weil rank.Added in 2007: The erratum concerns the second half of Proposition 2.4 which is true only under certain conditions. Reviewer: Edward F.Schaefer (Santa Clara) Cited in 7 ReviewsCited in 42 Documents MSC: 11G10 Abelian varieties of dimension \(> 1\) 11G30 Curves of arbitrary genus or genus \(\ne 1\) over global fields 14H40 Jacobians, Prym varieties 11D25 Cubic and quartic Diophantine equations Keywords:quartic Diophantine equations; computation of Selmer group; Jacobian of a curve; algorithms; Mordell-Weil ranks PDFBibTeX XMLCite \textit{E. F. Schaefer}, Math. Ann. 310, No. 3, 447--471 (1998; Zbl 0889.11021) Full Text: DOI arXiv