Second Isogeny Descents and the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjectural Formula

Abstract

Let h be a p-isogeny of elliptic curves. We describe how to perform h-descents on the nontrivial elements in the Shafarevich-Tate group which are killed by the dual isogeny h'. This makes computation of p-Selmer groups of elliptic curves admitting a p-isogeny over Q feasible for p = 5,7 in cases where an isogeny descent is insufficient and a full p-descent would be infeasible. As an application we complete the verification of the full Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjectural formula for all elliptic curves over Q of rank zero or one and conductor less than 5000.