ON SELMER GROUPS AND TATE–SHAFAREVICH GROUPS FOR ELLIPTIC CURVESy2=x3−n3

Abstract

We study the distribution of the size of Selmer groups and Tate–Shafarevich groups arising from a 2-isogeny and its dual 2-isogeny for elliptic curves En:y2=x3−n3. We show that the 2-ranks of these groups all follow the same distribution. The result also implies that the mean value of the 2-rank of the corresponding Tate–Shafarevich groups for square-free positive integers n≤X is as X→∞. This is quite different from quadratic twists of elliptic curves with full 2-torsion points over ℚ [M. Xiong and A. Zaharescu, Distribution of Selmer groups of quadratic twists of a family of elliptic curves. Adv. Math. 219 (2008), 523–553], where one Tate–Shafarevich group is almost always trivial while the other is much larger.