ON THE RANK OF ABELIAN VARIETIES OVER AMPLE FIELDS

Abstract

A field K is called ample if every smooth K-curve that has a K-rational point has infinitely many of them. We prove two theorems to support the following conjecture, which is inspired by classical infinite rank results: Every non-zero Abelian variety A over an ample field K which is not algebraic over a finite field has infinite rank. First, the ℤ(p)-module A(K) ⊗ ℤ(p) is not finitely generated, where p is the characteristic of K. In particular, the conjecture holds for fields of characteristic zero. Second, if K is an infinite finitely generated field and S is a finite set of local primes of K, then every Abelian variety over K acquires infinite rank over certain subfields of the maximal totally S-adic Galois extension of K. This strengthens a recent infinite rank result of Geyer and Jarden.