arXiv subjects

Martin Widmer

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Widmer.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Height lower bounds for elements of highly composite rings

Let $\mathbb{Q}^{(d)}$ be the composite field of all number fields of degree at most $d$. In 2001 Bombieri and Zannier proved that $\mathbb{Q}^{(2)}$ has the Northcott property and asked what happens for $d\geq 3$. Here we study the absolute Weil height for elements in the composite ring of the rings of integers of such number fields. In particular, we consider $\mathbb{Q}^{(3)}$ as the composite field of $\mathbb{Q}^{(2)}$ and a minimal infinite family of cubic fields, and we show that the composite ring of the rings of integers of these fields does have the Northcott property. Our results follow from new height lower bounds, expressed in terms of the degree. Moreover, we introduce a notion of size for subfields of $\mathbb{Q}^{(3)}$. For instance, $\mathbb{Q}^{(3)}$ has size $1$ and the maximal abelian subfield of $\mathbb{Q}^{(3)}$ has size $1/2$. We show that there is a subfield of $\mathbb{Q}^{(3)}$ of size $1$ which has the Northcott property.

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arXiv2026

A short remark on the $\ell$-torsion part of class groups

In a 2008 paper Ellenberg suggested a strategy to improve the known upper bounds for the $\ell$-torsion part of class groups of number fields of fixed degree $d$. Motivated by this he proposed a question about the number of primitive elements of small height in a number field. Here we answer Ellenberg's question. We also improve Heath-Brown's bound for the $\ell$-torsion part of class groups of purely cubic number fields, and we generalize our improvement to pure fields of arbitrary odd degree $d$.

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arXiv2026

Rational integers as sums of units -- the quadratic case

How many natural numbers below $X$ can be written as a sum of $k$ units of the ring of integers of a given number field? We give the asymptotics as $X$ gets large for quadratic number fields. This solves a problem of Jarden and Narkiewicz from 2007 for quadratic number fields.

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arXiv2025

Effective equidistribution of norm one elements in CM-fields

For a number field $K$ let $\mathcal{S}_K$ be the maximal subgroup of the multiplicative group $K^\times$ that embeds into the unit circle under each embedding of $K$ into the complex numbers. The group $\mathcal{S}_K$ can be seen as an archimedean counterpart to the group of units $\mathcal{O}_K^\times$ of the ring of integers $\mathcal{O}_K$. If $K=\mathbb{Q}(\mathcal{S}_K)$ is a CM-field then $\mathcal{S}_K/{\mathop{\rm Tor}\nolimits}(K^\times)$ is a free abelian group of infinite rank. If $K=\mathbb{Q}(\mathcal{S}_K)$ is not a CM-field then $\mathcal{S}_K=\{\pm 1\}$. In the former case $\mathcal{S}_K$ is the kernel of the relative norm map from $K^\times$ to the multiplicative subgroup $k^\times$ of the maximal totally real subfield $k$ of $K$.

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arXiv2024

Most totally real fields do not have universal forms or Northcott property

We show that, in the space of all totally real fields equipped with the constructible topology, the set of fields that admit a universal quadratic form, or have the Northcott property, is meager. The main tool is a new theorem on the number of square classes of totally positive units represented by a quadratic lattice of a given rank.

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arXiv2024

Small generators of abelian number fields

We show that for each abelian number field $K$ of sufficiently large degree $d$ there exists an element $α\in K$ with $K=\IQ(α)$ and absolute Weil height $H(α)\ll_d |Δ_K|^{1/2d}$ , where $Δ_K$ denotes the discriminant of $K$. This answers a question of Ruppert from 1998 in the case of abelian extensions of sufficiently large degree. We also show that the exponent $1/2d$ is best-possible when $d$ is even.

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arXiv2023

On the Northcott property for infinite extensions

We start with a brief survey on the Northcott property for subfields of the algebraic numbers $\Qbar$. Then we introduce a new criterion for its validity (refining the author's previous criterion), addressing a problem of Bombieri. We show that Bombieri and Zannier's theorem, stating that the maximal abelian extension of a number field $K$ contained in $K^{(d)}$ has the Northcott property, follows very easily from this refined criterion. Here $K^{(d)}$ denotes the composite field of all extensions of $K$ of degree at most $d$.

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arXiv2023

On Mahler's inequality and small integral generators of totally complex number fields

We improve Mahler's lower bound for the Mahler measure in terms of the discriminant and degree for a specific class of polynomials: complex monic polynomials of degree $d\geq 2$ such that all roots with modulus greater than some fixed value $r\geq1$ occur in equal modulus pairs. We improve Mahler's exponent $\frac{1}{2d-2}$ on the discriminant to $\frac{1}{2d-3}$. Moreover, we show that this value is sharp, even when restricting to minimal polynomials of integral generators of a fixed not totally real number field. An immediate consequence of this new lower bound is an improved lower bound for integral generators of number fields, generalising a simple observation of Ruppert from imaginary quadratic to totally complex number fields of arbitrary degree.

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arXiv2023

Small integral generators of totally complex number fields

Let $K$ be an algebraic number field and $H$ the absolute Weil height. Write $c_K$ for a certain positive constant that is an invariant of $K$. We consider the question: does $K$ contain an algebraic integer $\alpha$ such that both $K = \mathbb{Q}(\alpha)$ and $H(\alpha) \le c_K$? If $K$ has a real embedding then a positive answer was established in previous work. Here we obtain a positive answer if $\textrm{Tor}\bigl(K^{\times}\bigr) \not= \{\pm 1\}$, and so $K$ has only complex embeddings. We also show that if the answer is negative, then $K$ is totally complex, $\textrm{Tor}\bigl(K^{\times}\bigr) = \{\pm 1\}$, and $K$ is a Galois extension of its maximal totally real subfield. Further, we show that if $\mu \in O_K$ is not totally real, then there exists $\alpha$ in $O_K$ with $K = \mathbb{Q}(\alpha)$ and $H(\alpha) \le H(\mu)\thinspace c_K$.

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arXiv2022

Northcott numbers for the house and the Weil height

For an algebraic number $α$ and $γ\in \mathbb{R}$, $h(α)$ be the (logarithmic) Weil height, and $h_γ(α)=(\mathrm{deg}α)^γh(α)$ be the $γ$-weighted (logarithmic) Weil height of $α$. Let $f:\overline{\mathbb{Q}}\to [0,\infty)$ be a function on the algebraic numbers $\overline{\mathbb{Q}}$, and let $S\subset \overline{\mathbb{Q}}$. The Northcott number $\mathcal{N}_f(S)$ of $S$, with respect to $f$, is the infimum of all $X\geq 0$ such that $\{α\in S; f(α)< X\}$ is infinite. This paper studies the set of Northcott numbers $\mathcal{N}_f(\mathcal{O})$ for subrings of $\overline{\mathbb{Q}}$ for the house, the Weil height, and the $γ$-weighted Weil height. We show: (1) Every $t\geq 1$ is the Northcott number of a ring of integers of a field w.r.t. the house. (2) For each $t\geq 0$ there exists a field with Northcott number in $ [t,2t]$ w.r.t. the Weil height $h(\cdot)$. (3) For all $0\leq γ\leq 1$ and $γ'<γ$ there exists a field $K$ with $\mathcal{N}_{h_{γ'}}(K)=0$ and $\mathcal{N}_{h_γ}(K)=\infty$. For $(1)$ we provide examples that satisfy an analogue of Julia Robinon's property (JR), examples that satisfy an analogue of Vidaux and Videla's isolation property, and examples that satisfy neither of those. Item $(2)$ concerns a question raised by Vidaux and Videla due to its direct link with decidability theory via the Julia Robinson number. Item (3) is a strong generalisation of the known fact that there are fields that satisfy the Lehmer conjecture but which are not Bogomolov in the sense of Bombieri and Zannier.

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arXiv2021

Lehmer without Bogomolov

We construct fields of algebraic numbers that have the Lehmer property but not the Bogomolov property. This answers a recent implicit question of Pengo and the first author.

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arXiv2021

Bertini and Northcott

We prove a new Bertini-type Theorem with explicit control of the genus, degree, height, and the field of definition of the constructed curve. As a consequence we provide a general strategy to reduce certain height and rank estimates on abelian varieties over a number field $K$ to the case of jacobian varieties defined over a suitable extension of $K$.

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arXiv2020

Averages and higher moments for the $\ell$-torsion in class groups

We prove upper bounds for the average size of the $\ell$-torsion $\text{Cl}_K[\ell]$ of the class group of $K$, as $K$ runs through certain natural families of number fields and $\ell$ is a positive integer. We refine a key argument, used in almost all results of this type, which links upper bounds for $\text{Cl}_K[\ell]$ to the existence of many primes splitting completely in $K$ that are small compared to the discriminant of $K$. Our improvements are achieved through the introduction of a new family of specialised invariants of number fields to replace the discriminant in this argument, in conjunction with new counting results for these invariants. This leads to significantly improved upper bounds for the average and sometimes even higher moments of $\text{Cl}_K[\ell]$ for many families of number fields $K$ considered in the literature, for example, for the families of all degree-$d$-fields for $d\in\{2,3,4,5\}$ (and non-$D_4$ if $d=4$). As an application of the case $d=2$ we obtain the best upper bounds for the number of $D_p$-fields of bounded discriminant, for primes $p>3$.

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arXiv2017

Average bounds for the $\ell$-torsion in class groups of cyclic extensions

For all positive integers $\ell$, we prove non-trivial bounds for the $\ell$-torsion in the class group of $K$, which hold for almost all number fields $K$ in certain families of cyclic extensions of arbitrarily large degree. In particular, such bounds hold for almost all cyclic degree-$p$-extensions of $F$, where $F$ is an arbitrary number field and $p$ is any prime for which $F$ and the $p$-th cyclotomic field are linearly disjoint. Along the way, we prove precise asymptotic counting results for the fields of bounded discriminant in our families with prescribed splitting behavior at finitely many primes.

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arXiv2017

Bounds for the $\ell$-torsion in class groups

We prove for each integer $\ell\geq 1$ an unconditional upper bound for the size of the $\ell$-torsion subgroup $Cl_K[\ell]$ of the class group of $K$, which holds for all but a zero density set of number fields $K$ of degree $d\in\{4,5\}$ (with the additional restriction in the case $d = 4$ that the field be non-$D_4$). For sufficiently large $\ell$ this improves recent results of Ellenberg, Matchett Wood, and Pierce, and is also stronger than the best currently known pointwise bounds under GRH. Conditional on GRH and on a weak conjecture on the distribution of number fields our bounds also hold for arbitrary degrees $d$.

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arXiv2016

Weak admissibility, primitivity, o-minimality, and Diophantine approximation

We generalise M. M. Skriganov's notion of weak admissibility for lattices to include standard lattices occurring in Diophantine approximation and algebraic number theory, and we prove estimates for the number of lattice points in sets such as aligned boxes. Our result improves on Skriganov's celebrated counting result if the box is sufficiently distorted, the lattice is not admissible, and, e.g., symplectic or orthogonal. We establish a criterion under which our error term is sharp, and we provide examples in dimensions $2$ and $3$ using continued fractions. We also establish a similar counting result for primitive lattice points, and apply the latter to the classical problem of Diophantine approximation with primitive points as studied by Chalk, Erdős, and others. Finally, we use o-minimality to describe large classes of sets

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arXiv2016

On a Counting Theorem of Skriganov

We prove a counting theorem concerning the number of lattice points for the dual lattices of weakly admissible lattices in an inhomogeneously expanding box, which generalises a counting theorem of Skriganov. The error term is expressed in terms of a certain function $ν(Γ^\perp,\cdot)$ of the dual lattice $Γ^\perp$, and we carefully analyse the relation of this quantity with $ν(Γ,\cdot)$. In particular, we show that $ν(Γ^\perp,\cdot)=ν(Γ,\cdot)$ for any unimodular lattice of rank 2, but that for higher ranks it is in general not possible to bound one function in terms of the other. Finally, we apply our counting theorem to establish asymptotics for the number of Diophantine approximations with bounded denominator as the denominator bound gets large.

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arXiv2016

Asymptotic Diophantine approximation: The multiplicative case

Let $α$ and $β$ be irrational real numbers and $0<\F<1/30$. We prove a precise estimate for the number of positive integers $q\leq Q$ that satisfy $\|qα\|\cdot\|qβ\|<\F$. If we choose $\F$ as a function of $Q$ we get asymptotics as $Q$ gets large, provided $\F Q$ grows quickly enough in terms of the (multiplicative) Diophantine type of $(α,β)$, e.g., if $(α,β)$ is a counterexample to Littlewood's conjecture then we only need that $\F Q$ tends to infinity. Our result yields a new upper bound on sums of reciprocals of products of fractional parts, and sheds some light on a recent question of Lê and Vaaler.

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