Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-geometry-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2010/b/6/d/solution
Past exam of the geometry course of the University of Oxford 2010 B 6 d Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
Set . The Weierstrass elliptic function is doubly periodic, with a double pole at the origin modulo and no other poles. Its derivative has leading term . Since , no lower-order term cancels this, so has a pole of order exactly three at zero and no others.
The point does not lie on the line, because its line equation evaluates to . At every other point of the image, lying on the line is equivalent to . The three distinct image points therefore yield three distinct zeros modulo . By the zero-pole count, these are all the zeros and each is simple. Hence its principal divisor on the torus isApplying the elliptic divisor-sum identity givesThis is the period lattice form of the chord-and-tangent group law on an elliptic cubic.
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