Elliptic fibers over non-perfect residue fields

Abstract

Kodaira and Néron classified and described the geometry of the special fibers of the Néron model of an elliptic curve defined over a discrete valuation ring with a perfect residue field. Tate described an algorithm to determine the special fiber type by manipulating the Weierstrass equation. In the case of non-perfect residue fields, we discover new fiber types which are not on the Kodaira–Néron list. We describe these new types and extend Tate's algorithm to deal with all discrete valuation rings. Specifically, we show how to translate a Weierstrass equation into a form where the reduction type may be easily determined. Having determined the special fiber type, we construct the regular model of the curve with explicit blow-up calculations. We also provide tables that serve as a simple reference for the algorithm and which succinctly summarize the results.