Density of rational points near/on compact manifolds with certain curvature conditions (Q2143658)

The authors obtain new bounds on the counting function \[ N(\mathcal{M}; Q, \delta) = \# \{(a,q) \in\mathbb{Z}^M\times\mathbb{N} : 1 \le q \le Q, \,\mathrm{dist}(a/q , \mathcal{M})\leq\delta\}, \] where \(\mathcal{M}\) is a smooth and sufficiently curved manifold embedded in \(\mathbb{R}^M\), and \(\mathrm{dist}(\cdot, \cdot)\) denotes the \(L^\infty\)-distance in \(\mathbb{R}^M\). To be precise, if the manifold is given by \[ \mathcal{M} = \{(x, f_1(x), \dots, f_R(x)) \in\mathbb{R}^M : x \in \overline{B_{\varepsilon_0}(x_0)} \subseteq\mathbb{R}^n\}, \] where the \(f_i\) are \(C^2\)-functions on a small ball in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) such that no non-trivial linear combination of the \(f_i\)'s has vanishing determinant of the Hessian at \(x_0\), the centre of the ball, then \(\mathcal{M}\) satisfies the required smoothness and curvature conditions. It is shown that if this condition holds, under the further assumptions that \(n \ge 2\) and that the \(f_i\) are \(C^\ell\) for \(\ell > \max\{n+1,\frac{n}{2} +1\}\), if the ball \(B_{\varepsilon_0}(x_0)\) is sufficiently small, then there is a constant \(c_{\mathcal{M}} > 0\) such that \[ N(\mathcal{M}; Q, \delta) \sim c_{\mathcal{M}} \delta^R Q^{\dim\mathcal{M} + 1}, \] whenever \(\delta > Q^{-\frac{n}{n+2(R-1)}+\varepsilon}\) for any sufficiently small \(\varepsilon >0\) as \(Q\) tends to infinity. This proves a stronger version of a conjecture of \textit{J.-J. Huang} [Duke Math. J. 169, No. 11, 2045--2077 (2020; Zbl 1458.11115)] for the manifolds in question. In fact, a stronger counting estimate is derived for certain weighted counting functions, and as a corollary to this result, one is allowed to put \(\delta = 0\) under some additional conditions. In this way, one counts rational points on the manifold \(\mathcal{M}\), and it is shown that with the same conditions, but now with \(n \ge 3\) and \(\ell > \max\{n+1,\frac{n}{2} +4\}\), \[ N(\mathcal{M}; Q, 0) \ll Q^{n - \frac{(n-2)(R-1)}{n +2(R-1)}}(\log Q)^c \] for some \(c > 0\). This breaks the conjectured bound of \(Q^{\dim\mathcal{M} + \varepsilon}\) of Huang [loc.cit.], which in turn is a smooth analogue of Serre's dimension growth conjecture.