Formulae for arithmetic on genus 2 hyperelliptic curves

The ideal class group of hyperelliptic curves can be used in cryptosystems based on the discrete logarithm problem. In this article we present explicit formulae to perform the group operations for genus 2 curves. The formulae are completely general but to achieve the lowest number of operations we treat odd and even characteristic separately. We present 3 different coordinate systems which are suitable for different environments, e. g. on a smart card we should avoid inversions while in software a limited number is acceptable. The presented formulae render genus two hyperelliptic curves very useful in practice. The first system are affine coordinates where each group operation needs one inversion. Then we consider projective coordinates avoiding inversions on the cost of more multiplications and a further coordinate. Finally, we introduce a new system of coordinates and state algorithms showing that doublings are comparably cheap and no inversions are needed. A comparison between the systems concludes the paper.