Congruent Numbers and Heegner Points

Abstract

Mohammed Ben Alhocain, in an Arab manuscript of the tenth century, stated that the principal object of the theory of rational right triangles is to find a square which when increased or diminished by a certain number $m$ becomes a square (see Dickson). In modern language, this object is to find a rational point of infinite order on the elliptic curve $my^2=x^3-x$. Heegner constructed (see also Monsky) such rational points in the case that $m$ are primes congruent to 5, 7 modulo 8 or twice primes congruent to 6 modulo 8. We extend Heegner's result to integers $m$ with many prime divisors.