Division by 1–ζ on Superelliptic Curves and Jacobians

Abstract

Abstract Yuri Zarhin gave formulas for “dividing a point on a hyperelliptic curve by 2”. Given a point $P$ on a hyperelliptic curve $\mathcal{C}$ of genus $g$, Zarhin gives the Mumford representation of an effective degree $g$ divisor $D$ satisfying $2(D - g \infty ) \sim P - \infty $. The aim of this paper is to generalize Zarhin’s result to superelliptic curves; instead of dividing by 2, we divide by $1 - \zeta $. There is no Mumford representation for divisors on superelliptic curves, so instead we give formulas for functions that cut out a divisor $D$ satisfying $(1 - \zeta ) D \sim P - \infty $. Additionally, we study the intersection of $(1 - \zeta )^{-1} \mathcal{C}$ and the theta divisor $\Theta $ inside the Jacobian $\mathcal{J}$. We show that the intersection is contained in $\mathcal{J}[1 - \zeta ]$ and compute the intersection multiplicities.