Twisted L-Functions and Monodromy (AM-150)

For hundreds of years, the study of elliptic curves has played a central role in mathematics. The past century in particular has seen huge progress in this study, from Mordell's theorem in 1922 to the work of Wiles and Taylor-Wiles in 1994. Nonetheless, there remain many fundamental questions where we do not even know what sort of answers to expect. This book explores two of them: What is the average rank of elliptic curves, and how does the rank vary in various kinds of families of elliptic curves?Nicholas Katz answers these questions for families of ''big'' twists of elliptic curves in the f