2-Selmer Groups over Multiquadratic Extensions

Abstract: Let K be a multiquadratic number field. We investigate the average dimension of 2-Selmer groups over K for the family of all elliptic curves over the rational numbers (ordered by height). We give upper and lower bounds for this average. In the special case of quadratic fields, these bounds are arbitrarily close for a positive proportion of K. Our bounds are achieved by studying the genus theory invariant for 2-Selmer groups over such fields, whose average we similarly bound and, in many cases, determine. We make use of a variant of the Ekedahl sieve for local sums, which we present in appropriate generality for further applications.