Perfect unary forms over real quadratic fields (Q2448544): Difference between revisions

Let \(F={\mathbb{Q}}(\sqrt{d})\) be a real quadratic field with ring of integers \(\mathcal{O}\). Then \(F\) has two real embeddings \(v_1,v_2\). A point \(A=(A_1,A_2)\in C={\mathbb{R}}^2_{>0}\subset V={\mathbb{R}}^2\) defines an unary quadratic form \(F\rightarrow {\mathbb{R}}\) by \[ A[x]=Q_A(x)=\text{Tr}(Ax^2)=A_1v_1(x^2)+A_2v_2(x^2). \] Let \(A\in C\) be a positive definite unary form over \(F\). The minimum \(m(A)\) of \(A\) is defined by \(m(A)=\text{inf}_{x\in{\mathcal{O}}\backslash \{0\}}A[x].\) An element \(\alpha\in{\mathcal{O}}\) is a minimal vector of \(A\) if \(A[x]=m(A)\). Define a map \(q:{\mathcal{O}}\rightarrow V\) by \(q(x)=x^2=(v_1(x^2),v_2(x^2))\). We call a positive definite form \(A\in C\) perfect, if \[ \text{span}_{{\mathbb{R}}}\{q(v)\mid x\in M(A)\}=V, \] where \(M(A)\) is the set of minimal vectors for \(A\). We know that there are only finitely many \(\text{GL}_1({\mathcal{O}})\)-inequivalent homothety classes of perfect forms. Let \(h_d\) denote the number of \(\text{GL}_1({\mathcal{O}})\)-orbits of homothety classes of perfect forms. The author of the paper under review analyzes the number \(h_d\). He computes \(h_d\) for squarefree integers \(d\leq 200000\). Furthermore an upper and a lower bound for \(h_d\) is given. We get \[ \frac{l_d}{2}\leq h_d\leq l_d, \] where \(l_d\) is the period length of the continued fraction of \(c_d=\sqrt{d}\), if \(d\equiv 2,3\mod 4\), resp. \(c_s=\frac{-1+\sqrt{d}}{2},\) if \(d\equiv 1 \mod 4\).