On certain diophantine equations of diagonal type

Abstract

In this note we consider Diophantine equations of the form \begin{equation*} a(x^p-y^q) = b(z^r-w^s), \quad \mbox{where}\quad \frac{1}{p}+\frac{1}{q}+\frac{1}{r}+\frac{1}{s}=1, \end{equation*} with even positive integers $p,q,r,s$. We show that in each case the set of rational points on the underlying surface is dense in the Zariski topology. For the surface with $(p,q,r,s)=(2,6,6,6)$ we prove density of rational points in the Euclidean topology. Moreover, in this case we construct infinitely many parametric solutions in coprime polynomials. The same result is true for $(p,q,r,s)\in \{(2,4,8,8),(2,8,4,8)\}$. In the case $(p,q,r,s)=(4,4,4,4)$, we present some new parametric solutions of the equation $x^4-y^4=4(z^4-w^4)$.

16 pages, revised version will appear in the Journal of Number Theory