This is the note for a series of lectures that the author gave at the Centre de Recerca Matem´atica (CRM), Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain on October 19–24, 2009. The aim is to give a comprehensive description of some recent work of the author and his students on generalisations of the Gross-Zagier formula, Euler systems on Shimura curves, and rational points on elliptic curves.

We derive an asymptotic formula which counts the number of abelian extensions of prime degrees over rational function fields. Specifically, let l be a rational prime and K a rational function field F_q(t) with l\nmid q. Let Discf (F/K) denote the finite discriminant of F over K. Denote the number of abelian l-extensions F/K with deg (Discf (F/K)) = (l − 1)αn by a_l(n), where α = α(q, l) is the order of q in the multiplicative group (Z/lZ)^\times. We give a explicit asymptotic formula for a_l(n). In the case of cubic extensions with q ≡ 2 (mod 3), our formula gives an exact analogue of Cohn’s classical formula.

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Let $k$ be a field and $k(x_0,\ldots,x_{p-1})$ be the rational function field of $p$ variables over $k$ where $p$ is a prime number. Suppose that $G=\langle\sigma\rangle \simeq C_p$ acts on $k(x_0,\ldots,x_{p-1})$ by $k$-automorphisms defined as $\sigma:x_0\mapsto x_1\mapsto\cdots\mapsto x_{p-1}\mapsto x_0$. Denote by $P$ the set of all prime numbers and define $P_0=\{p\in P:\bm{Q}(\zeta_{p-1})$ is of class number one$\}$ where $\zeta_n$ a primitive $n$-th root of unity in $\bm{C}$ for a positive integer $n$; $P_0$ is a finite set by \cite{MM}. Theorem. Let $k$ be an algebraic number field and $P_k=\{p\in P: p$ is ramified in $k\}$. Then $k(x_0,\ldots,x_{p-1})^G$ is not stably rational over $k$ for all $p\in P\backslash (P_0\cup P_k)$.