For an elliptic curve E defined over a number field K and $L/K$ a Galois extension, we study the possibilities of the Galois group Gal$(L/K)$, when the Mordell–Weil rank of $E(L)$ increases from that of $E(K)$ by a small amount (namely 1, 2, and 3). In relation with the vanishing of corresponding L-functions at $s=1$, we prove several elliptic analogues of classical theorems related to Artin’s holomorphy conjecture. We then apply these to study the analytic minimal subfield, first introduced by Akbary and Murty, for the case when order of vanishing is 2. We also investigate how the order of vanishing changes as rank increases by 1 and vice versa, generalizing a theorem of Kolyvagin.

We study the growth of p-primary Selmer groups of abelian varieties with good ordinary reduction at p in ${{Z}}_p$ -extensions of a fixed number field K. Proving that in many situations the knowledge of the Selmer groups in a sufficiently large number of finite layers of a ${{Z}}_p$ -extension over K suffices for bounding the over-all growth, we relate the Iwasawa invariants of Selmer groups in different ${{Z}}_p$ -extensions of K. As applications, we bound the growth of Mordell–Weil ranks and the growth of Tate-Shafarevich groups. Finally, we derive an analogous result on the growth of fine Selmer groups.

Frey and Jarden asked if any abelian variety over a number field $K$ has the infinite Mordell–Weil rank over the maximal abelian extension ${{K}^{\text{ab}}}$. In this paper, we give an affirmative answer to their conjecture for the Jacobian variety of any smooth projective curve $C$ over $K$ such that $\sharp C\left( {{K}^{\text{ab}}} \right)\,=\,\infty $ and for any abelian variety of $\text{G}{{\text{L}}_{2}}$-type with trivial character.