Quadratic forms and systems of forms in many variables

Let $F_1,\dotsc,F_R$ be quadratic forms with integer coefficients in $n$ variables. When $n\geq 9R$ and the variety $V(F_1,\dotsc,F_R)$ is a smooth complete intersection, we prove an asymptotic formula for the number of integer points in an expanding box at which these forms simultaneously vanish, which in particular implies the Hasse principle for $V(F_1,\dotsc,F_R)$. Previous work in this direction required $n$ to grow at least quadratically with $R$. We give a similar result for $R$ forms of degree $d$, conditional on an upper bound for the number of solutions to an auxiliary inequality. In principle this result may apply as soon as $n> d2^dR$. In the case that $d\geq 3$, several strategies are available to prove the necessary upper bound for the auxiliary inequality. In a forthcoming paper we use these ideas to apply the circle method to nonsingular systems of forms with real coefficients.