On the number of quintic fields (Q1775146)

Denote by \(N_5(X)\) the number of quintic extensions of the rationals with the absolute value of discriminant bounded by \(x\). The authors establish the bound \(N_5(x)=O(x^{1+\varepsilon})\) for every \(\varepsilon > 0\). This improves essentially the bound \(N_5(x) = O(x^{7/4})\) obtained by \textit{W. M. Schmidt} [Astérisque 228, 189--195 (1995; Zbl 0827.11069)]. For the proof the authors consider the prehomogeneous vector space \((G,V)\), where \(G=\text{GL}(4)\times \text{GL}(5)\) and \(V=\text{Aff}(4)\otimes\wedge^2\text{Aff}(5)\). If \(V^{ss}=\{x\in V:\;P(x)\neq0\}\), where \(P\in Q[V]\) is the relative invariant polynomial for \((G,V)\), i.e. for every rational character \(\chi\) of \(G\) one has \(P(gx)=\chi(g)P(x)\) for \(g\in G,x\in V\), then, as shown by \textit{D. J. Wright} and \textit{A. Yukie} [Invent. Math. 110, 283--314 (1992; Zbl 0803.12004)], there is a 1-1 correspondence between the orbit space \(G_Q\setminus V_Q^{ss}\) and the set of isomorphism classes of separable quintic \(Q\)-algebras. In a previous paper [Nagoya Math. J. 173, 163--203 (2004; Zbl 1068.11068)], the authors used this to construct a map OR\(_5\) from \(G_Z\setminus V_Z^{ss}\) to the set of isomorphism classes of separable quintic \(Z\)-algebras, whose image contains the isomorphism classes of maximal orders of all quintic extensions of the rationals. Let \(V_{QR\;Z}\) be the set of elements \(x\in V_Z^{ss}\) such that OR\(_5(x)\otimes_Z Q\) is a quintic field, and let \(Z(s)\) be its zeta integral. The authors prove that \(Z(s)\) converges in the half-plane \(\Re s>40\), and this permits them to obtain the bound for \(N_5(x)\). The proof of the convergence involves several cases and a part of the work has been done with the help of a computer.