Solutions of $x_1^2+x_2^2-x_3^2=D$ with small $x_3$: a spectral approach

Abstract

We count the integral solutions of $x_1^2+x_2^2-x_3^2=D$ weighted by $\Phi (x_3/M)$, for $M$ smaller than $\sqrt{D}$. Such solutions correspond to binary quadratic forms of discriminant $D$, and the count becomes a sum, over the geodesics of discriminant $D$, of a function of their distance to the point $i$. We evaluate it by the spectral theory of automorphic forms. Throughout, $\theta =7/64$. For square $D=n^2$ the geodesics run from cusp to cusp, and Hecke theory reduces them to the single geodesic from $0$ to $\infty$. For every $n$ and both parities of $x_3$, we obtain an asymptotic formula with error $O(n^{1+\theta +\epsilon }{M}^{-1/2})$, using the Kim-Sarnak bound and the large sieve of Deshouillers and Iwaniec (and the theta group for the parity of $x_3$). It is non-trivial for $M\ge n^{71/96+\epsilon }$. This improves the range $n^{5/6+\epsilon }$ of the elementary method, and confirms the corrected main term of the author's earlier work. For non-square $D=f^2{D}_0$ the geodesics are closed. A Hecke relation for their traces reduces everything to the fundamental discriminant $D_0$. We obtain an error $O(D^{\epsilon }{f}^{1+\theta }{D}_0^{2/3}{M}^{-1/2})$, using the formulas of Duke-Imamoglu-Toth and Baruch-Mao together with the cubic moment bound of Young and of Andersen-Wu. For $D\equiv 5\mathrm{mod}8$ this counts all solutions, and the range $M\ge D^{1/2-1/1332}$ of Friedlander and Iwaniec improves to $M\ge D^{4/9+\epsilon }$. This paper was written in collaboration with Claude (Opus 5.5, High), an AI model developed by Anthropic.

arXiv commentv2: Theorem 3 now holds for all non-square D (the restriction to odd D_0 is removed, using the cubic moment of Andersen-Wu and the Weyl bound of Petrow-Young); relation to Humphries-Radziwill clarified; acknowledgement added. 27 pages, 2 tables. Written in collaboration with Claude (Opus 5.5, High), an AI model developed by Anthropic; see Subsection 1.6. Numerical checks as ancillary files