The Nullity of a Family of Proper Biharmonic Maps via Elliptic Curves

We prove a conjecture of Montaldo, Oniciuc and Ratto concerning the nullity of a family of proper biharmonic maps from the flat two-torus to the round two-sphere.

The proof reveals an unexpected connection between spectral geometry and arithmetic geometry.

We show that the vanishing of a mixed Fourier eigenvalue produces a rational point on an explicitly defined affine quartic.

By constructing an explicit polynomial isomorphism with an elliptic curve over $\Q$, the problem is reduced to the determination of a Mordell--Weil group.

This yields a complete description of the rational points on the spectral curve and shows that none satisfies the positivity conditions required for a mixed Fourier mode.

As a consequence, the mixed eigenvalues never vanish, confirming the Montaldo--Oniciuc--Ratto conjecture and proving that the nullity of every map in the family is equal to $5$.