Integer points on spheres and their orthogonal lattices (Q2520603)

Let \(\mathbb{D}=\{D\in \mathbb{N}: D\not\equiv 0,4,7\pmod 8\}\), and \(\mathbb{Z}_{\text{prim}}^3\) be the set of primitive vectors in \(\mathbb{Z}^3\). Legendre's Theorem concerning the representation of an integer as a sum of three squares implies that the set \[ \mathbb{S}^2(D)\mathop{=}^{\text{def}}\left \{v\in\mathbb{Z}_{\text{prim}}^3:\|v\|_2^2=D\right \}\neq \phi \Leftrightarrow D\in\mathbb{D} \] In this present work, the authors are concerned with a refinement of Legendre's important result, known as Linnik's problem. Let \[ \mathbb{S}^2\mathop{=}^{\text{def}}\left \{x\in\mathbb{R}^3:\|x\|_2=1\right \}, \] let \(S\) be a subset of the odd prime numbers, and set \[ \mathbb{D}(S)=\left \{D\in \mathbb{D}:\forall\,\, p \in S,-D \pmod{p}\in \left ( \mathbb{F}_p^{\times}\right )^2\right \}. \] In the late 1950's, Linnik showed that \(\left \{\frac{v}{\|v\|}:v\in \mathbb{S}^2(D)\right \}\) equidistribute to the uniform measure on \(\mathbb{S}^2\) when \(D\rightarrow \infty\), with the restriction that \(D\in\mathbb{D}(p)\). Extending these ideas the authors consider the direction of the vector \(v\in\mathbb{S}^2(D)\) and the shape of the lattice \[ \Lambda_v\mathop{=}^{\text{def}}\mathbb{Z}^3\cap v^\perp \] in the orthogonal complement \(v^{\perp}\). They conjecture that this equidistribution result also extends to the pairs consisting of \(v\) on the sphere and the shape of the lattice \(\Lambda_v\) in \(v^\perp\). Using a joining result for higher rank diagonalisable actions, they obtain this result under an additional congruence condition.