Using a recent breakthrough of Smith [18], we improve the results of Fouvry and Klüners [4, 5] on the solubility of the negative Pell equation. Let $\mathcal {D}$ denote the set of positive squarefree integers having no prime factors congruent to $3$ modulo $4$ . Stevenhagen [19] conjectured that the density of d in $\mathcal {D}$ such that the negative Pell equation $x^2-dy^2=-1$ is solvable with $x, y \in \mathbb {Z}$ is $58.1\%$ , to the nearest tenth of a percent. By studying the distribution of the $8$ -rank of narrow class groups $\operatorname {\mathrm {Cl}}^+(d)$ of $\mathbb {Q}(\sqrt {d})$ , we prove that the infimum of this density is at least $53.8\%$ .

In this paper we compute and continue meromorphically to the whole complex plane the zeta function for twisted modular curves. The twist of the modular curve is done by a mod p representation of the absolute Galois group.

We prove that if q is a power of an odd prime, then there is no genus-2 curve over $\mathbf{F}_q$ whose Jacobian has characteristic polynomial of Frobenius equal to $x^4 + (2 - 2q)x^2 + q^2$. Our proof uses the Brauer relations in a biquadratic extension of $\mathbb{Q}$ to show that every principally polarized abelian surface over $\mathbf{F}_q$ with the given characteristic polynomial splits over $\mathbf{F}_{q^2}$ as a product of polarized elliptic curves.

The results herein continue observations on norm form equations and continued fractions begun and continued in the works [1]−[3], and [5]−[6].

Let G be a finite group. To a set of subgroups of order two we associate a mod 2 Hecke algebra and construct a homomorphism, ψ, from its units to the class-group of Z[G]. We show that this homomorphism takes values in the subgroup, D(Z[G]). Alternative constructions of Chinburg invariants arising fromthe Galois module structure of higher-dimensional algebraic K-groups of rings of algebraic integers often differ by elements in the image of ψ. As an application we show that two such constructions coincide.

Chinburg's third invariant Ω(N/K, 3) ∊ C1(Z[Γ]) of a Galois extension N/K of number fields with group Γ is closely related to the Galois structure of unit groups and ideal class groups, and deep unsolved problems such as Stark's conjecture.

We give a formula for Ω(N/K, 3) modulo D(ZΓ) in the factorisability defect class group, reminiscent of analytic class number formulas. Specialising to the case of an absolutely abelian, real field N, we give a natural conjecture in terms of Hecke factorisations which implies the vanishing of the invariant in the defect class group.

We prove this conjecture when N has prime-power conductor using Euler systems of cyclotomic units, Ramachandra units and Hecke factorisation. This supports a general conjecture of Chinburg, which in our situation specialises to the statement that Ω(N/K, 3) = 0 for such extensions.

We also develop a slightly extended version of Euler systems of units for general abelian extensions, which will be applied to abelian extensions of imaginary quadratic fields elsewhere