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Real period distincition, seen as Tamagawa number at infinity

To expand my comment, there are at least 3 subtle ways to get BSD wrong:

  1. The BSD period over ${\mathbb Q}$ is the real period $\Omega_\infty$ when $E({\mathbb R})$ is connected ($\Delta(E)<0$) and $2\Omega_\infty$ when it has two connected components ($\Delta(E)>0$). The same thing happens over number fields, at every real place. So in your example you have to divide the $L$-value by $2\Omega_\infty$ to get $1/16$.

Another way (alternative) of phrasing this: is that the Tamagawa number at an Archimedean place is $2$ if real and split ($\Delta>0$), and $1$ otherwise. It is less easier to forget to include it then, and you can always use $\Omega_\infty$. Magma does not have Tamagawa numbers at infinite places directly.

The other two concern BSD over number fields:

  1. The height pairing in BSD depends on the ground field. For instance, $E=37A1$ has $E({\mathbb Q})={\mathbb Z}\cdot P$ and $E({\mathbb Q(i)})={\mathbb Z}\cdot P$, where $P$ is the same point $(0,0)$. The regulator is $\approx 0.051$ over ${\mathbb Q}$ but $\approx 2\cdot 0.051=0.102$ over ${\mathbb Q(i)}$; the factor $2$ is $[{\mathbb Q(i)}:{\mathbb Q}]$.

  2. Over ${\mathbb Q}$ there is this luxury of having a global everywhere minimal model, so there is a canonical differential to integrate. Over number fields you cannot do this, so one usually takes any invariant differential and introduces a correction term that measures its failure to be minimal at all primes. The point is that if you start with a curve over ${\mathbb Q}$ with additive reduction at $p$ and go up to a number field $K$ where $p$ ramifies, e.g. $50A3$ over $K={\mathbb Q}(\sqrt 5)$, the minimal model might stop being minimal, and this correction factor comes in for BSD over $K$.

The functions ConjecturalRegulator and ConjecturalSha in Magma take care of these normalizations - it's actually quite nice to experiment with them.

Hope this helps.

P.S. You would not believe how many times each of these mistakes was made!

Tim Dokchitser
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