Seminar series
Date
Thu, 26 May 2016
16:00
Location
L6
Speaker
Trevor Wooley
Organisation
University of Bristol

The sub-convexity barrier traditionally prevents one from applying the Hardy-Littlewood (circle) method to Diophantine problems in which the number of variables is smaller than twice the inherent total degree. Thus, for a homogeneous polynomial in a number of variables bounded above by twice its degree, useful estimates for the associated exponential sum can be expected to be no better than the square-root of the associated reservoir of variables. In consequence, the error term in any application of the circle method to such a problem cannot be expected to be smaller than the anticipated main term, and one fails to deliver an asymptotic formula. There are perishingly few examples in which this sub-convexity barrier has been circumvented, and even fewer having associated degree exceeding two. In this talk we review old and more recent progress, and exhibit a new class of examples of Diophantine problems associated with, though definitely not, of translation-invariant type.

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