Anisotropic forms modulo p² (Q4484416)

Artin conjectured that a form \(f\) of degree \(d\) over the \(p\)-adic numbers \(\mathbb Q_p\) must have a non-trivial zero if it has more than \(d^2\) variables. Many counterexamples are now known, and the authors present a simple case, in which \(d\) is an arbitrary multiple of \(p^2- p\). However, the main result goes in the opposite direction. Let \(f\in\mathbb Z[X_1,\dots, X_{2d+1}]\) be a form of degree \(d\). It is shown that for \(p\geq p(d)\) there exist integers \(x_1,\dots, x_{2d+1}\), not all divisible by~\(p\), such that \(p^2|f(x_1,\dots, x_{2d+1})\). Here \(p(d)\) is an explicitly given (but rather large) function of~\(d\).