Elliptic curve point addition

Elliptic curve point addition is the group operation of an elliptic curve group, i.e. it is a function that takes two points of an elliptic curve as input, and returns a third point of the elliptic curve as its output, while obeying the group axioms.

The operation is defined e.g. at en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elliptic_curve_point_multiplication&oldid=1168754060#Point_operations. For example, consider the most common case for two different points different. If the two points are given in coordinates:then the addition is defined in the general case as:with some slightly different definitions for point doubling $P+P$ and the identity point.

This definition relies only on operations that we know how to do on arbitrary fields:and it therefore works for elliptic curves defined over any field.

Just remember that:means:and that $y^{-1}$ always exists because it is the inverse element, which is guaranteed to exist for multiplication due to the group axioms it obeys.

The group function is usually called elliptic curve point addition, and repeated addition as done for DHKE is called elliptic curve point multiplication.