English

The arithmetic of arithmetic Coxeter groups

Number Theory 2019-01-23 v1 Group Theory

Abstract

In the 1990s, J.H. Conway published a combinatorial-geometric method for analyzing integer-valued binary quadratic forms (BQFs). Using a visualization he named the "topograph," Conway revisited the reduction of BQFs and the solution of quadratic Diophantine equations such as Pell's equation. It appears that the crux of his method is the coincidence between the arithmetic group PGL2(Z)PGL_2({\mathbb Z}) and the Coxeter group of type (3,)(3,\infty). There are many arithmetic Coxeter groups, and each may have unforeseen applications to arithmetic. We introduce Conway's topograph, and generalizations to other arithmetic Coxeter groups. This includes a study of "arithmetic flags" and variants of binary quadratic forms.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1809.04181,
  title  = {The arithmetic of arithmetic Coxeter groups},
  author = {Suzana Milea and Christopher Shelley and Martin H. Weissman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.04181},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

14 pages, 11 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T04:03:10.326Z