Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

In this talk we will discuss an arithmetic analogue of the gonality of a nice curve over a number field: the smallest positive integer e such that the points of residue degree bounded by e are infinite. By work of Faltings, Harris--Silverman and Abramovich--Harris, it is understood when this invariant is 1, 2, or 3; by work of Debarre-Fahlaoui these criteria do not generalize. We will focus on scenarios under which we can guarantee that this invariant is actually equal to the gonality using the auxiliary geometry of a surface containing the curve. This is joint work with Geoffrey Smith.