The average size of the 3-isogeny Selmer groups of elliptic curves $y^2 = x^3 + k$

Manjul Bhargava, Noam Elkies, Ari Shnidman

Published 2016-10-18Version 1

The elliptic curve $E_k \colon y^2 = x^3 + k$ admits a natural 3-isogeny $\phi_k \colon E_k \to E_{-27k}$. We compute the average size of the $\phi_k$-Selmer group as $k$ varies over the integers. Unlike previous results of Bhargava and Shankar on $n$-Selmer groups of elliptic curves, we show that this average can be very sensitive to congruence conditions on $k$; this sensitivity can be precisely controlled by the Tamagawa numbers of $E_k$ and $E_{-27k}$. As consequences, we prove that the average rank of the curves $E_k$, $k\in\mathbb Z$, is less than 1.21 and over $23\%$ (resp. $41\%$) of the curves in this family have rank 0 (resp. 3-Selmer rank 1).