Regular ternary sums of generalized octagonal numbers (Q7004830)

For an integer \(x\), denote by \(P_8(x)\) be the \(x\)th generalized octagonal number \(3x^2-x\). The paper under review considers quadratic polynomials of the form\N\[ \Nf=f(x_1,x_2,x_3) = aP_8(x_1)+bP_8(x_2)+cP_8(x_3),\N\] \Nwhere \(a,b,c \in \mathbb N\) and \(x_1,x_2,x_3 \in \mathbb Z\). Such a polynomial \(f\) is called a ternary octagonal form and denoted by \(p_8(a,b,c)\).\N\NA quadratic form \(f\) is called regular if it represents all nonnegative integers \(n\) which are locally represented, i.e., for which the equation \(f(x_1,\dots,x_k)=n\) is solvable over the \(p\)-adic integers \(\mathbb Z_p\) for all primes \(p\).\N\NOne of the main results in this paper asserts that there are at most \(15\) regular ternary octagonal forms (Theorem 1.2). The list of all candidates are listed in a table (Table 1). Moreover, the author proves that \(12\) out of the \(15\) forms are in fact regular (Theorem 1.3). The remaining ones are \(p_8(1,2,32)\), \(p_8(1,8,32)\) and \(p_8(1,16,32)\), which are conjectured to be regular by a computer search for \(n\le 10^9\) (Conjecture 1.4).\N\NThe author also proves that there are exactly two stable regular ternary octagonal forms, which are \(p_8(1,1,1)\) and \(p_8(1,1,2)\) (Theorem 1.1). Here, a ternary octagonal form \(p_8(a,b,c)\) is called stable if the corresponding diagonal \(\mathbb Z\)-lattice \(\langle a,b,c \rangle\) is stable.\N\NIn proving Theorem 1.2 using Theorem 1.1, the Watson transformation defined on ternary octagonal forms plays a crucial role. It preserves the regularity under some local conditions, and taking it finitely many times to any regular ternary octagonal form leads to a stable regular ternary octagonal form.