English

A New Proof of Hilbert's Theorem on Ternary Quartics

Algebraic Geometry 2010-03-29 v1

Abstract

David Hilbert proved that a non-negative real quartic form f(x,y,z) is the sum of three squares of quadratic forms. We give a new proof which shows that if the complex plane curve Q defined by f is smooth, then f has exactly 8 such representations, up to equivalence. They correspond to those real 2-torsion points of the Jacobian of Q which are not represented by a conjugation-invariant divisor on Q.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0405475,
  title  = {A New Proof of Hilbert's Theorem on Ternary Quartics},
  author = {Victoria Powers and Bruce Reznick and Claus Scheiderer and Frank Sottile},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0405475},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

4 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T17:05:53.038Z