Heron Quadrilaterals via elliptic curves

Abstract

A Heron quadrilateral is a cyclic quadrilateral whose area and side lengths are rational. In this work, we establish a correspondence between Heron quadrilaterals and a family of elliptic curves of the form $y^2 = x3+/alpha x^2-n^2x.$ This correspondence generalizes the notions of Goins and Maddox who established a similar connection between Heron triangles and elliptic curves. We further study this family of elliptic curves, looking at their torsion groups and ranks. We also explore their connection with congruent numbers, which are the /alpha = 0 case. Congruent numbers are positive integers which are the area of a right triangle with rational side lengths. This is a new characterization of congruent numbers in terms of Heron Quadrilaterals.