Fermat curve

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In mathematics, the Fermat curve is the algebraic curve in the complex projective plane dened in homogeneous coordinates (X:Y:Z) by the Fermat
equation

Therefore, in terms of the afne plane its equation is

An integer solution to the Fermat equation would correspond to a nonzero rational number solution to the afne equation, and vice versa. But by
Fermat's last theorem it is now known that (for n3) there are no nontrivial integer solutions to the Fermat equation; therefore, the Fermat curve has no
nontrivial rational points.
The Fermat curve is non-singular and has genus

This means genus 0 for the case n = 2 (a conic) and genus 1 only for n = 3 (an elliptic curve). The Jacobian variety of the Fermat curve has been studied
in depth. It is isogenous to a product of simple abelian varieties with complex multiplication.
The Fermat curve also has gonality

Fermat varieties
Fermat-style equations in more variables dene as projective varieties the Fermat varieties.

Related studies
Gross, Benedict H.; Rohrlich, David E. (1978), "Some Results on the Mordell-Weil Group of the Jacobian of the Fermat Curve" (PDF), Inventiones

Mathematicae 44 (3): 201224, doi:10.1007/BF01403161.

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Categories: Algebraic curves Diophantine geometry
This page was last modied on 10 September 2015, at 21:13.
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