Morton–Silverman lower-bound conjecture for canonical heights

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Let d≥2d\geq 2, let ϕ∈Q[z]\phi\in\mathbb{Q}[z] be a polynomial of degree dd, and let x∈Qx\in\mathbb{Q}. The canonical height h^ϕ:Q→[0,∞)\hat{h}_{\phi}:\mathbb{Q}\to[0,\infty) satisfies h^ϕ(ϕ(x))=dh^ϕ(x)\hat{h}_{\phi}(\phi(x))=d\hat{h}_{\phi}(x) and vanishes exactly at preperiodic points. Let h(ϕ)h(\phi) denote the arithmetic height of ϕ\phi in the moduli space of degree-dd polynomials.

Morton–Silverman canonical-height conjecture. There is a positive constant M′=M′(d)>0M'=M'(d)>0 such that, for every polynomial ϕ∈Q[z]\phi\in\mathbb{Q}[z] of degree dd and every point x∈Qx\in\mathbb{Q} that is not preperiodic for ϕ\phi,

h^ϕ(x)≥M′h(ϕ).\hat{h}_{\phi}(x)\geq M' h(\phi).

This conjecture asks for a uniform lower bound on the canonical height of non-preperiodic rational points relative to the height of the polynomial. It is presented as an analogue of lower bounds for elliptic-curve heights; the source cites a more general version, and the conjecture remains open here.

References

Primary source

Robert L. Benedetto, Benjamin Dickman, Sasha Joseph, Benjamin Krause, Daniel Rubin and Xinwen Zhou, “Computing points of small height for cubic polynomials”, arXiv:0807.0468 (2008).

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