Decompositions of singular abelian surfaces

Abstract

Given an abelian surface, the number of its distinct decompositions into a product of elliptic curves has been described by Ma. Moreover, Ma himself classified the possible decompositions for abelian surfaces of Picard number $1 \leq \rho \leq 3$. We explicitly find all such decompositions in the case of abelian surfaces of Picard number $\rho= 4$. This is done by computing the transcendental lattice of products of isogenous elliptic curves with complex multiplication, generalizing a technique of Shioda and Mitani, and by studying the action of a certain class group on the factors of a given decomposition. We also provide an alternative and simpler proof of Ma's formula, and an application to singular K3 surfaces.