On the behaviour of root numbers in families of elliptic curves

Abstract

Let E be a one-parameter family of elliptic curves over Q. We prove that the average root number is zero for a large class of families of elliptic curves of fairly general type. Furthermore, we show that any family E with at least one point of multiplicative reduction over Q(t) has average root number 0, provided that two classical arithmetical conjectures hold for two polynomials constructed explicitly in terms of E. The behaviour of the root number in any family E without multiplicative reduction over Q(t) is shown to be rather regular and non-random; we give expressions for the average root number in this case.