Conic bundles and Mordell--Weil ranks of elliptic surfaces

Abstract

Let $k$ be a number field and $\mathcal{E}$ an elliptic curve defined over the function field $k(T)$ given by an equation of the form $y^2 = a_3x^3 + a_2x^2 + a_1x + a_0$, where $a_i \in k[T]$ and $deg(a_i) \leq 2$. We explore the conic bundle structure over the $x$-line to obtain lower and upper bounds for the Mordell--Weil rank of $\mathcal{E}(k(T))$.