Computational Arithmetic Geometry

With the recent increase in available computing power, new computations are possible in many areas of arithmetic geometry. To name just a few examples, Cremona's tables of elliptic curves now go up to conductor 120,000 instead of just conductor 1,000, tables of Hilbert class fields are known for discriminant up to at least 5,000, and special values of Hilbert and Siegel modular forms can be calculated to extremely high precision. In many cases, these experimental capabilities have led to new observations and ideas for progress in the field. They have also led to natural algorithmic questions on the feasibility and efficiency of many computations, especially for the purpose of applications in cryptography. The AMS Special Session on Computational Arithmetic Geometry, held on April 29-30, 2006, in San Francisco, CA, gathered together many of the people currently working on the computational and algorithmic aspects of arithmetic geometry. This volume contains research articles related to talks given at the session. The majority of articles are devoted to various aspects of arithmetic geometry, mainly with a computational approach.