The lifting problem for universal quadratic forms over a totally real number field K consists of determining the existence or otherwise of a quadratic form with integer coefficients (or $\mathbb {Z}$-form) that is universal over K. We prove the nonexistence of universal $\mathbb {Z}$-forms over simplest cubic fields for which the integer parameter is big enough. The monogenic case is already known. We prove the nonexistence in the nonmonogenic case by using the existence of a totally positive nonunit algebraic integer in K with minimal (codifferent) trace equal to one.

We prove that in each degree divisible by 2 or 3, there are infinitely many totally real number fields that require universal quadratic forms to have arbitrarily large rank.

For a subset S of nonnegative integers and a vector $\mathbf {a}=(a_1,\ldots ,a_k)$ of positive integers, define the set $V^{\prime }_S(\mathbf {a})=\{ a_1s_1+\cdots +a_ks_k : s_i\in S\}-\{0\}$ . For a positive integer n, let $\mathcal T(n)$ be the set of integers greater than or equal to n. We consider the problem of finding all vectors $\mathbf {a}$ satisfying $V^{\prime }_S(\mathbf {a})=\mathcal T(n)$ when S is the set of (generalised) m-gonal numbers and n is a positive integer. In particular, we completely resolve the case when S is the set of triangular numbers.

Z.-W. Sun [‘Refining Lagrange’s four-square theorem’, J. Number Theory175 (2017), 169–190] conjectured that every positive integer n can be written as $ x^2+y^2+z^2+w^2\ (x,y,z,w\in \mathbb {N}=\{0,1,\ldots \})$ with $x+3y$ a square and also as $n=x^2+y^2+z^2+w^2\ (x,y,z,w \in \mathbb {Z})$ with $x+3y\in \{4^k:k\in \mathbb {N}\}$ . In this paper, we confirm these conjectures via the arithmetic theory of ternary quadratic forms.

A (positive definite and integral) quadratic form is said to be prime-universal if it represents all primes. Recently, Doyle and Williams [‘Prime-universal quadratic forms $ax^2+by^2+cz^2$ and $ax^2+by^2+cz^2+dw^2$ ’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc.101 (2020), 1–12] classified all prime-universal diagonal ternary quadratic forms and all prime-universal diagonal quaternary quadratic forms under two conjectures. We classify all prime-universal diagonal quadratic forms regardless of rank, and prove the so-called 67-theorem for a diagonal quadratic form to be prime-universal.

We study totally positive definite quadratic forms over the ring of integers $\mathcal {O}_K$ of a totally real biquadratic field $K=\mathbb {Q}(\sqrt {m}, \sqrt {s})$. We restrict our attention to classic forms (i.e. those with all non-diagonal coefficients in $2\mathcal {O}_K$) and prove that no such forms in three variables are universal (i.e. represent all totally positive elements of $\mathcal {O}_K$). Moreover, we show the same result for totally real number fields containing at least one non-square totally positive unit and satisfying some other mild conditions. These results provide further evidence towards Kitaoka's conjecture that there are only finitely many number fields over which such forms exist. One of our main tools are additively indecomposable elements of $\mathcal {O}_K$; we prove several new results about their properties.

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.

The celebrated Smith–Minkowski–Siegel mass formula expresses the mass of a quadratic lattice $(L,Q)$ as a product of local factors, called the local densities of $(L,Q)$. This mass formula is an essential tool for the classification of integral quadratic lattices. In this paper, we will describe the local density formula explicitly by observing the existence of a smooth affine group scheme $\underline{G}$ over $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ with generic fiber $\text{Aut}_{\mathbb{Q}_{2}}(L,Q)$, which satisfies $\underline{G}(\mathbb{Z}_{2})=\text{Aut}_{\mathbb{Z}_{2}}(L,Q)$. Our method works for any unramified finite extension of $\mathbb{Q}_{2}$. Therefore, we give a long awaited proof for the local density formula of Conway and Sloane and discover its generalization to unramified finite extensions of $\mathbb{Q}_{2}$. As an example, we give the mass formula for the integral quadratic form $Q_{n}(x_{1},\dots ,x_{n})=x_{1}^{2}+\cdots +x_{n}^{2}$ associated to a number field $k$ which is totally real and such that the ideal $(2)$ is unramified over $k$.

We give an enumeration of all positive definite primitive $ \mathbb{Z} $-lattices in dimension $n\geq 3$ whose genus consists of a single isometry class. This is achieved by using bounds obtained from the Smith–Minkowski–Siegel mass formula to computationally construct the square-free determinant lattices with this property, and then repeatedly calculating pre-images under a mapping first introduced by G. L. Watson.

We hereby complete the classification of single-class genera in dimensions 4 and 5 and correct some mistakes in Watson’s classifications in other dimensions. A list of all single-class primitive $ \mathbb{Z} $-lattices has been compiled and incorporated into the Catalogue of Lattices.

Given an intersection of two quadrics $X\subset { \mathbb{P} }^{m- 1} $, with $m\geq 9$, the quantitative arithmetic of the set $X( \mathbb{Q} )$ is investigated under the assumption that the singular locus of $X$ consists of a pair of conjugate singular points defined over $ \mathbb{Q} (i)$.

New simple functional equations of zeta functions of the prehomogeneous vector spaces consisting of symmetric matrices are obtained, using explicit forms of zeta functions in the previous paper, Part I, and real analytic Eisenstein series of half-integral weight. When the matrix size is 2, our functional equations are identical with the ones by Shintani, but we give here an alternative proof. The special values of the zeta functions at nonpositive integers and the residues are also explicitly obtained. These special values, written by products of Bernoulli numbers, are used to give the contribution of “central” unipotent elements in the dimension formula of Siegel cusp forms of any degree. These results lead us to a conjecture on explicit values of dimensions of Siegel cusp forms of any torsion-free principal congruence subgroups of the symplectic groups of general degree.

An integer may be represented by a quadratic form over each ring of p-adic integers and over the reals without being represented by this quadratic form over the integers. More generally, such failure of a local-global principle may occur for the representation of one integral quadratic form by another integral quadratic form. We show that many such examples may be accounted for by a Brauer–Manin obstruction for the existence of integral points on schemes defined over the integers. For several types of homogeneous spaces of linear algebraic groups, this obstruction is shown to be the only obstruction to the existence of integral points.

We prove a new upper bound for the smallest zero $x$ of a quadratic form over a number field with the additional restriction that $x$ does not lie in a finite number of $m$ prescribed hyperplanes. Our bound is polynomial in the height of the quadratic form, with an exponent depending only on the number of variables but not on $m$.

Let $K$ be a number field, and let $F$ be a symmetric bilinear form in $2N$ variables over $K$. Let $Z$ be a subspace of ${{K}^{N}}$. A classical theorem of Witt states that the bilinear space $\left( Z,\,F \right)$ can be decomposed into an orthogonal sum of hyperbolic planes and singular and anisotropic components. We prove the existence of such a decomposition of small height, where all bounds on height are explicit in terms of heights of $F$ and $Z$. We also prove a special version of Siegel's lemma for a bilinear space, which provides a small-height orthogonal decomposition into one-dimensional subspaces. Finally, we prove an effective version of the Cartan-Dieudonné theorem. Namely, we show that every isometry $~\sigma$ of a regular bilinear space $\left( Z,\,F \right)$ can be represented as a product of reflections of bounded heights with an explicit bound on heights in terms of heights of $F$, $Z$, and $~\sigma$.

J. S. Hsia has conjectured an arithmetical version of Springer Theorem, which states that no two spinor genera in the same genus of integral quadratic forms become identified over an odd degree extension. In this paper we prove by examples that the corresponding result for quaternionic skew-hermitian forms does not hold in full generality. We prove that it does hold for unimodular skew-hermitian lattices under all extensions and for lattices whose discriminant is relatively prime to 2 under Galois extensions.

To every pair of algebraic number fields with isomorphic Witt rings one can associate a number, called the minimum number of wild primes. Earlier investigations have established lower bounds for this number. In this paper an analysis is presented that expresses the minimum number of wild primes in terms of the number of wild dyadic primes. This formula not only gives immediate upper bounds, but can be considered to be an exact formula for the minimum number of wild primes.

In this paper we prove that every positive definite n-ary integral quadratic form with 12 < n < 13 (respectively 14 ≦ n ≤ 20) that can be represented by a sum of squares of integral linear forms is represented by a sum of 2 · 3n + n + 6 (respectively 3 · 4n + n + 3) squares. We also prove that every positive definite 7-ary integral quadratic form that can be represented by a sum of squares is represented by a sum of 25 squares.