Secondary terms in counting functions for cubic fields

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Abstract: We prove the existence of secondary terms of order X^{5/6} in the Davenport-Heilbronn theorems on cubic fields and 3-torsion in class groups of quadratic fields. For cubic fields this confirms a conjecture of Datskovsky-Wright and Roberts. We also prove a variety of generalizations, including to arithmetic progressions, where we discover a curious bias in the secondary term. Roberts' conjecture has also been proved independently by Bhargava, Shankar, and Tsimerman. In contrast to their work, our proof uses the analytic theory of zeta functions associated to the space of binary cubic forms, developed by Shintani and Datskovsky-Wright.


Let \(N^\pm_3(X)\) count the number of cubic fields \(K\) with positive and negative discriminants, respectively, whose absolute values are below \(X\). \textit{D. P. Roberts} [Math. Comput. 70, No. 236, 1699--1705 (2001; Zbl 0985.11068)] conjectured that NEWLINE\[NEWLINE N^\pm_3(X) = C^\pm \frac1{12 \zeta(3)} X + K^\pm \frac{4 \zeta(1/3)}{5 \Gamma(2/3)^3 \zeta(5/3)} X^{5/6} + o(X^{5/6}), NEWLINE\]NEWLINE where \(C^+ = 1\), \(C^- = 3\), \(K^+ = 1\) and \(K^- = \sqrt{3}\). In this article, this conjecture is proved, even with an error term \(o(X^{7/9 + \varepsilon})\). The main term in this result is due to [\textit{H. Davenport} and \textit{H. Heilbronn}, Proc. R. Soc. Lond., Ser. A 322, 405--420 (1971; Zbl 0212.08101)], and the secondary term was also proved by \textit{K. Belabas} et al. [Duke Math. J. 153, No. 1, 173--210 (2010; Zbl 1227.11114)] with an error term of order \(X^{7/8 + \varepsilon}\); recently, \textit{M. Bhargava} et al. [Invent. Math. 193, No. 2, 439--499 (2013; Zbl 1294.11191)] have improved this to an error term of order \(X^{13/16 + \varepsilon}\). The authors also show how to incorporate local restrictions into their results, and compare them with data obtained by enumerating discriminants of a moderate size. The proof uses bounds on cubic Gauss sums to obtain bounds on partial Shintani zeta functions, which then are estimated using Landau's method.



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