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The Hasse-Minkowski theorem states that if

$$Q(x_1,\ldots,x_n) = \sum_{i,j=1}^n a_{ij} x_ix_j$$ is a quadratic form with $a_{ij} \in \mathbb Z$ and $\det (a_{ij}) \neq 0$, then the equation $$Q(x_1,\ldots,x_n)=0$$ has a nontrivial solution in the integers if and only if it has a solution in the reals and all the $p$-adics.

  1. Can there be a bounded version to this statement such as if $$Q(x_1,\ldots,x_n) = \sum_{i,j=1}^n a_{ij} x_ix_j$$ is a quadratic form with $a_{ij} \in \mathbb Z$ and $\det (a_{ij}) \neq 0$, then the equation $$Q(x_1,\ldots,x_n)=0$$ has a nontrivial solution in the integers with each coordinate bound in absolute value by $B$ iff $\dots$?

  2. Can there be a bounded version to at least a linear version of the statement such as if $$L(x_1,\ldots,x_n) = \sum_{i=1}^n a_{i} x_i$$ is a linear form with $a_{i} \in \mathbb Z$ and some criteria, then the equation $$L(x_1,\ldots,x_n)=0$$ has a nontrivial solution in the integers with each coordinate bound in absolute value by $B$ iff $\dots$?

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  • $\begingroup$ Possibly you can get some local criterion using weak approximation, but its not clear to me exactly how this would go. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 31, 2017 at 12:55

2 Answers 2

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The linear case is Siegel's lemma. I do not know the quadratic case: Cassels does not have it, perhaps O'Meara does. Note that the regulator is closely related where we seek a representation of $1$ by $x^2-dy^2$ in integers, and bounds on the regulator are hard.

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  • $\begingroup$ in case of interest: this user asked a fairly specific question a month ago, and I recently found out how to do it, here is the final of my several answers there: math.stackexchange.com/questions/2392683/… $\endgroup$
    – Will Jagy
    Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 0:46
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For the first question, the answer is yes; you can find the statement and a proof in Cassels (pp 86-89). A far reaching generalization was obtained by J. Vaaler in 1987 concerning the height of a totally isotropic subspace of quadratic forms on subspace of $F^n$, where $F$ is a number field. Since then there have been various types of results like that. You may want to check out Lenny Fukshansky's papers. A recent paper of him with Chan and Henshaw generalizes Vaaler's result to zeros avoiding algebraic varieties.

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