The average size of the 5-Selmer group of elliptic curves is 6, and the average rank is less than 1

Manjul Bhargava, Arul Shankar

Published 2013-12-30Version 1

In this article, we prove that the average rank of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$, when ordered by height, is less than $1$ (in fact, less than $.885$). As a consequence of our methods, we also prove that at least four fifths of all elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ have rank either 0 or 1; furthermore, at least one fifth of all elliptic curves in fact have rank 0. The primary ingredient in the proofs of these theorems is a determination of the average size of the $5$-Selmer group of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$; we prove that this average size is $6$. Another key ingredient is a new lower bound on the equidistribution of root numbers of elliptic curves; we prove that there is a family of elliptic curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ having density at least $55\%$ for which the root number is equidistributed.