Spherical Heron triangles and elliptic curves

Abstract

We define spherical Heron triangles (spherical triangles with "rational" side-lengths and angles) and parametrize them via rational points of certain families of elliptic curves. We show that the congruent number problem has infinitely many solutions for most areas in the spherical setting and we find a spherical Heron triangle with rational medians. We also explore the question of spherical triangles with a single rational median or a single a rational area bisector (median splitting the triangle in half), and discuss various problems involving isosceles spherical triangles.