We aim to re-prove a theorem conjectured by Gauss, namely there are exactly nine imaginary quadratic fields $\mathbf{Q}(\sqrt{-q})$ with class number one: specifically the list is $q\in \{3,4,7,8,11,19,43,67,163\}$. Our method initially follows an idea of Goldfeld, but rather than using an elliptic curve of analytic rank three (provided by the Gross–Zagier theorem), we instead use an elliptic curve of analytic rank two, where this $L$-function vanishing can be proven by modular symbols rather than a difficult height formula. It is already clear that Goldfeld’s work yields a constant lower bound for the class number by such means, but unfortunately it seems that even for the best choice of elliptic curve this numerical constant is less than 1, unless one can show non-trivial cancellation in the $L$-function coefficients restricted to values taken by quadratic forms. To show the latter, we consider a specific analytic rank-two elliptic curve with complex multiplication by $\mathbf{Q}(\sqrt{-1})$, and then by adapting a result of Hooley’s regarding equi-distrbution of roots of a quadratic polynomial to varying moduli, are able to show that there is indeed sufficient coefficient cancellation, giving an effective resolution of class number one. As we use various aspects of the principal form, our proof seems inapplicable for larger class numbers. We also comment on the possibility of using spectral techniques (following Templier and Tsimerman) to show the desired coefficient cancellation, though postpone the details of this to elsewhere.

In this paper, we improve the moment estimates for the gaps between numbers that can be represented as a sum of two squares of integers. We consider a certain sum of Bessel functions and prove the upper bound for its mean value. This bound provides estimates for the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}$th moments of gaps for all $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}\leqslant 2$.

Extending the notion of regularity introduced by Dickson in 1939, a positive definite ternary integral quadratic form is said to be spinor regular if it represents all the positive integers represented by its spinor genus (that is, all positive integers represented by any form in its spinor genus). Jagy conducted an extensive computer search for primitive ternary quadratic forms that are spinor regular, but not regular, resulting in a list of 29 such forms. In this paper, we will prove that there are no additional forms with this property.

Given systems of two (inhomogeneous) quadratic equations in four variables, it is known that the Hasse principle for integral points may fail. Sometimes this failure can be explained by some integral Brauer–Manin obstruction. We study the existence of a non-trivial algebraic part of the Brauer group for a family of such systems and show that the failure of the integral Hasse principle due to an algebraic Brauer–Manin obstruction is rare, as for a generic choice of a system the algebraic part of the Brauer-group is trivial. We use resolvent constructions to give quantitative upper bounds on the number of exceptions.

Let $G$ be an orthogonal, symplectic or unitary group over a non-archimedean local field of odd residual characteristic. This paper concerns the study of the “wild part” of an irreducible smooth representation of $G$, encoded in its “semisimple character”. We prove two fundamental results concerning them, which are crucial steps toward a complete classification of the cuspidal representations of $G$. First we introduce a geometric combinatorial condition under which we prove an “intertwining implies conjugacy” theorem for semisimple characters, both in $G$ and in the ambient general linear group. Second, we prove a Skolem–Noether theorem for the action of $G$ on its Lie algebra; more precisely, two semisimple elements of the Lie algebra of $G$ which have the same characteristic polynomial must be conjugate under an element of $G$ if there are corresponding semisimple strata which are intertwined by an element of $G$.

We show that over any field $F$ of characteristic 2 and 2-rank $n$ , there exist $2^{n}$ bilinear $n$ -fold Pfister forms that have no slot in common. This answers a question of Becher [‘Triple linkage’, Ann.$K$ -Theory, to appear] in the negative. We provide an analogous result also for quadratic Pfister forms.

Let $q$ be an anisotropic quadratic form defined over a general field $F$. In this article, we formulate a new upper bound for the isotropy index of $q$ after scalar extension to the function field of an arbitrary quadric. On the one hand, this bound offers a refinement of an important bound established in earlier work of Karpenko–Merkurjev and Totaro; on the other hand, it is a direct generalization of Karpenko’s theorem on the possible values of the first higher isotropy index. We prove its validity in two key cases: (i) the case where $\text{char}(F)\neq 2$, and (ii) the case where $\text{char}(F)=2$ and $q$ is quasilinear (i.e., diagonalizable). The two cases are treated separately using completely different approaches, the first being algebraic–geometric, and the second being purely algebraic.

We show that the set of real polynomials in two variables that are sums of three squares of rational functions is dense in the set of those that are positive semidefinite. We also prove that the set of real surfaces in $\mathbb{P}^{3}$ whose function field has level 2 is dense in the set of those that have no real points.

Subconvexity bounds on the critical line are proved for general Epstein zeta-functions of $k$-ary quadratic forms. This is related to sup-norm bounds for unitary Eisenstein series on $\text{GL}(k)$ associated with the maximal parabolic of type $(k-1,1)$, and the exact sup-norm exponent is determined to be $(k-2)/8$ for $k\geqslant 4$. In particular, if $k$ is odd, this exponent is not in $\frac{1}{4}\mathbb{Z}$, which is relevant in the context of Sarnak’s purity conjecture and shows that it can in general not directly be generalized to Eisenstein series.

Let $K$ be a (non-archimedean) local field and let $F$ be the function field of a curve over $K$ . Let $D$ be a central simple algebra over $F$ of period $n$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}\in F^{\ast }$ . We show that if $n$ is coprime to the characteristic of the residue field of $K$ and $D\cdot (\unicode[STIX]{x1D706})=0$ in $H^{3}(F,\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{n}^{\otimes 2})$ , then $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}$ is a reduced norm from $D$ . This leads to a Hasse principle for the group $\operatorname{SL}_{1}(D)$ , namely, an element $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}\in F^{\ast }$ is a reduced norm from $D$ if and only if it is a reduced norm locally at all discrete valuations of $F$ .

In characteristic two, some criteria are obtained for a symmetric square-central element of a totally decomposable algebra with orthogonal involution, to be contained in an invariant quaternion subalgebra.

Let $R$ be a finite commutative ring of odd characteristic and let $V$ be a free $R$ -module of finite rank. We classify symmetric inner products defined on $V$ up to congruence and find the number of such symmetric inner products. Additionally, if $R$ is a finite local ring, the number of congruent symmetric inner products defined on $V$ in each congruence class is determined.

Let $M$ be an irreducible holomorphic symplectic (hyperkähler) manifold. If $b_{2}(M)\geqslant 5$ , we construct a deformation $M^{\prime }$ of $M$ which admits a symplectic automorphism of infinite order. This automorphism is hyperbolic, that is, its action on the space of real $(1,1)$ -classes is hyperbolic. If $b_{2}(M)\geqslant 14$ , similarly, we construct a deformation which admits a parabolic automorphism (and many other automorphisms as well).

We prove that spin groups act generically freely on various spinor modules, in the sense of group schemes and in a way that does not depend on the characteristic of the base field. As a consequence, we extend the surprising calculation of the essential dimension of spin groups and half-spin groups in characteristic zero by Brosnan et al. [Essential dimension, spinor groups, and quadratic forms, Ann. of Math. (2) 171 (2010), 533–544], and Chernousov and Merkurjev [Essential dimension of spinor and Clifford groups, Algebra Number Theory 8 (2014), 457–472] to fields of characteristic different from two. We also complete the determination of generic stabilizers in spin and half-spin groups of low rank.

Inspired by methods of N. P. Smart, we describe an algorithm to determine all Picard curves over $\mathbb{Q}$ with good reduction away from 3, up to $\mathbb{Q}$ -isomorphism. A correspondence between the isomorphism classes of such curves and certain quintic binary forms possessing a rational linear factor is established. An exhaustive list of integral models is determined and an application to a question of Ihara is discussed.

Let $h(d)$ be the class number of indefinite binary quadratic forms of discriminant $d$ and let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}_{d}$ be the corresponding fundamental unit. In this paper, we obtain an asymptotic formula for the $k$ th moment of $h(d)$ over positive discriminants $d$ with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}_{d}\leqslant x$ , uniformly for real numbers $k$ in the range $0<k\leqslant (\log x)^{1-o(1)}$ . This improves upon the work of Raulf, who obtained such an asymptotic for a fixed positive integer $k$ . We also investigate the distribution of large values of $h(d)$ when the discriminants $d$ are ordered according to the size of their fundamental units $\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}_{d}$ . In particular, we show that the tail of this distribution has the same shape as that of class numbers of imaginary quadratic fields ordered by the size of their discriminants. As an application of these results, we prove that there are many positive discriminants $d$ with class number $h(d)\geqslant (e^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}}/3+o(1))\cdot \unicode[STIX]{x1D700}_{d}(\log \log \unicode[STIX]{x1D700}_{d})/\log \,\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}_{d}$ , a bound that we believe is best possible. We also obtain an upper bound for $h(d)$ that is twice as large, assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis.

A lattice walk with all steps having the same length $d$ is called a $d$ -walk. Denote by ${\mathcal{T}}_{d}$ the terminal set, that is, the set of all lattice points that can be reached from the origin by means of a $d$ -walk. We examine some geometric and algebraic properties of the terminal set. After observing that $({\mathcal{T}}_{d},+)$ is a normal subgroup of the group $(\mathbb{Z}^{N},+)$ , we ask questions about the quotient group $\mathbb{Z}^{N}/{\mathcal{T}}_{d}$ and give the number of elements of $\mathbb{Z}^{2}/{\mathcal{T}}_{d}$ in terms of $d$ . To establish this result, we use several consequences of Fermat’s theorem about representations of prime numbers of the form $4k+1$ as the sum of two squares. One of the consequences is the fact, observed by Sierpiński, that every natural power of such a prime number has exactly one relatively prime representation. We provide explicit formulas for the relatively prime integers in this representation.

For any positive integer $M$ we show that there are infinitely many real quadratic fields that do not admit $M$ -ary universal quadratic forms (without any restriction on the parity of their cross coefficients).

Let $C\in \mathbb{Z}[x_{1},\ldots ,x_{n}]$ be a cubic form. Assume that $C$ splits into four forms. Then $C(x_{1},\ldots ,x_{n})=0$ has a non-trivial integer solution provided that $n\geqslant 10$ .

Let $Q(x,y,z)$ be an integral quadratic form with determinant coprime to some modulus $q$ . We show that $q\,|\,Q$ for some non-zero integer vector $(x,y,z)$ of length $O(q^{5/8+{\it\varepsilon}})$ , for any fixed ${\it\varepsilon}>0$ . Without the coprimality condition on the determinant one could not necessarily achieve an exponent below $2/3$ . The proof uses a bound for short character sums involving binary quadratic forms, which extends a result of Chang.