Polynomial Bounds for Birch's Theorem
Number Theory
2025-12-02 v1
Abstract
Let be a number field and forms of odd degrees. In 1957, Birch proved that if is sufficiently large then the forms always have a nontrivial zero in . Apart from some small degrees, the number of variables required was so large that it has been described as "not even astronomical". We prove that, for any fixed degree, may be taken polynomial in . We deduce this from a stronger result -- the Zariski closure of the set of rational zeros has codimension bounded by a polynomial in . When is totally imaginary, our results hold for forms of any (possibly even) degrees.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.00697,
title = {Polynomial Bounds for Birch's Theorem},
author = {Amichai Lampert and Andrew Snowden and Tamar Ziegler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.00697},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
21 pages, comments welcome!