English

Laws of inertia in higher degree binary forms

Number Theory 2009-07-01 v1 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

We consider representations of real forms of even degree as a linear combination of powers of real linear forms, counting the number of positive and negative coefficients. We show that the natural generalization of Sylvester's Law of Inertia holds for binary quartics, but fails for binary sextics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0906.5559,
  title  = {Laws of inertia in higher degree binary forms},
  author = {Bruce Reznick},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.5559},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

13 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:19:34.198Z