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A heuristic for the distribution of point counts for random curves over a finite field
Published Web Location
http://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0310No data is associated with this publication.
Abstract
How many rational points are there on a random algebraic curve of large genus g over a given finite field Fq? We propose a heuristic for this question motivated by a (now proven) conjecture of Mumford on the cohomology of moduli spaces of curves; this heuristic suggests a Poisson distribution with mean q+1+1/(q-1). We prove a weaker version of this statement in which g and q tend to infinity, with q much larger than g.
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