English

On a conjecture of Levesque and Waldschmidt

Number Theory 2023-06-21 v1

Abstract

One of the first parametrised Thue equations, X3(n1)X2Y(n+2)XY2Y3=1,\left| X^3 - (n-1)X^2 Y - (n+2) XY^2 - Y^3 \right| = 1, over the integers was solved by E. Thomas in 1990. If we interpret this as a norm-form equation, we can write this as NK/Q(Xλ0Y)=(Xλ0Y)(Xλ1Y)(Xλ2Y)=1\left| N_{K/\mathbb{Q}}\left( X - \lambda_0 Y \right) \right| = \left| \left( X-\lambda_0 Y \right) \left( X-\lambda_1 Y \right) \left( X-\lambda_2 Y \right) \right| =1 if λ0,λ1,λ2\lambda_0, \lambda_1, \lambda_2 are the roots of the defining irreducible polynomial, and KK the corresponding number field.\par\medskip Levesque and Waldschmidt twisted this norm-form equation by an exponential parameter ss and looked, among other things, at the equation NK/Q(Xλ0sY)=1.\left| N_{K/\mathbb{Q}}\left( X - \lambda_0^s Y \right) \right| = 1. They solved this effectively and conjectured that introducing a second exponential parameter tt and looking at NK/Q(Xλ0sλ1tY)=1\left| N_{K/\mathbb{Q}}\left( X - \lambda_0^s\lambda_1^t Y \right) \right| = 1 does not change the effective solvability. \par\medskip We want to partially confirm this, given that min(2st,2ts,s+t)>εmax(s,t)>2,\min\left( \left| 2s-t \right|, \left| 2t-s \right|, \left| s+t \right| \right) > \varepsilon \cdot \max\left( \left|s\right|, \left|t\right| \right) > 2, i.e. the two exponents do not almost cancel in specific cases.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2306.11331,
  title  = {On a conjecture of Levesque and Waldschmidt},
  author = {Tobias Hilgart and Volker Ziegler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.11331},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:09:21.331Z