One half log discriminant and division polynomials

Abstract

Szpiro and Tucker recently proved that, under mild conditions, the valuation of the minimal discriminant of an elliptic curve with semistable reduction over a discrete valuation ring can be expressed in terms of intersections between n-torsion and 2-torsion, where n tends to infinity. The argument of Szpiro and Tucker is geometric in nature. We give a proof based on the arithmetic of division polynomials, and generalize the result to the case of hyperelliptic curves.