5
$\begingroup$

I am doing some literature review regarding Buchi's problem. In particular, I am reading the relevant section in this survey paper by Mazur (Questions of Decidability and Undecidability in Number Theory) where it is stated that Buchi proved that there is no finite algorithm which decides the solubility of an arbitrary system of diagonal quadratic form equations

$$A \begin{bmatrix} x_1^2 \\ \vdots \\ x_n^2 \end{bmatrix} = \mathbf{b},$$

where $A \in M_{m \times n}(\mathbb{Z})$ and $\mathbf{b} \in \mathbb{Z}^m$ (Mazur called this Buchi's conjecture), provided that the following statement, known as Buchi's problem (see the Wikipedia page above), holds: there exists a positive integer $m_0$ such that if $x_1^2, \cdots, x_n^2$ is a sequence of squares satisfying

$$\displaystyle x_{j+2}^2 - 2 x_{j+1}^2 + x_j^2 = 2$$

for $j = 1, \cdots, n-2$, then either $n \leq m_0$ or there exists an integer $x$ such that $x_i = x + i$ for $i = 1, \cdots, n$.

Mazur had cited Buchi's collected works. Unfortunately, I cannot access this from where I am. Does anyone know of an original reference where Buchi proved this implication?

$\endgroup$
4
  • $\begingroup$ Xavier Vidaux has several papers that mention Buchi, maybe one of them gives the citation you want. See www2.udec.cl/~xvidaux/publi.html $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 22, 2023 at 17:20
  • $\begingroup$ Find anything helpful at Vidaux' site? If not, you could try writing to him. I suppose it's possible Buchi never formally published a proof. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 25, 2023 at 13:51
  • $\begingroup$ Not interested? $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 4 at 14:48
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson Hi, I haven't had much chance to look during the holidays. I will take a look in the next few days. Thanks for the suggestion! $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 4 at 16:33

0

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .