An effective “Theorem of André” for CM-points on a plane curve

Abstract

AbstractIt is a well known result of Y. André (a basic special case of the André-Oort conjecture) that an irreducible algebraic plane curve containing infinitely many points whose coordinates are CM-invariants is either a horizontal or vertical line, or a modular curve Y0(n). André's proof was partially ineffective, due to the use of (Siegel's) class-number estimates. Here we observe that his arguments may be modified to yield an effective proof. For example, with the diagonal line X1+X2=1 or the hyperbola X1X2=1 it may be shown quite quickly that there are no imaginary quadratic τ1,τ2 with j(τ1)+j(τ2)=1 or j(τ1)j(τ2)=1, where j is the classical modular function.