Selmer groups of CM-twists of elliptic curves

Abstract

Let $F$ be a totally real Galois number field of degree $g\leq5$ and let $\ell$ be an odd prime. Let $E/F$ be an elliptic curve with an $F$-rational point of order $\ell$. Under explicit arithmetic and local hypotheses, together with an explicit non-vanishing condition modulo $\ell$, we prove that there are $\gg_{F,E,\ell}\frac{X^{1/(2g)}}{\log X}$ totally negative square classes $d\in F^\times/(F^\times)^2$ with $\left|\mathrm{N}_{F/\mathbb{Q}}\bigl(D(F(\sqrt{d})/F)\bigr)\right|<X $ for which $\operatorname{Sel}_\ell(E^d,F)$ is trivial. Such twists have rank zero and trivial $\ell$-part of the Shafarevich--Tate group. The condition is verifiable by a finite computation, which we carry out in an example. We lift the method of James and Ono from $\mathbb{Q}$ to the totally real setting, combining a theorem of Morrow, which relates the Selmer group of such a twist to the class group of the CM extension $F(\sqrt{d})$, with an indivisibility theorem of Takai for relative class numbers. Takai twists only by quadratic Hecke characters, whereas Morrow's conditions are local; we extend the twisting argument to primitive quadratic residue-class characters to make the two results compatible.