English

The density of integral quadratic forms having a $k$-dimensional totally isotropic subspace

Number Theory 2022-12-21 v1

Abstract

We investigate the probability that a random quadratic form in Z[x1,...,xn]{\mathbb{Z}}[x_1,...,x_n] has a totally isotropic subspace of a given dimension. We show that this global probability is a product of local probabilities. Our main result computes these local probabilities for quadratic forms over the pp-adics. The formulae we obtain are rational functions in pp invariant upon substituting p1/pp \mapsto 1/p.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.10495,
  title  = {The density of integral quadratic forms having a $k$-dimensional totally isotropic subspace},
  author = {Lycka Drakengren and Tom Fisher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.10495},
  year   = {2022}
}

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18 pages