Let 
 be a number field and 
 an abelian surface. By the Mordell-Weil theorem, the group of 
-rational points on 
 is finitely generated and as for elliptic curves, its rank is predicted by the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. A basic consequence of this conjecture is the parity conjecture: the sign of the functional equation of the 
-series determines the parity of the rank of 
.