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Peter Koymans

Publications and source records attributed to Peter Koymans.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

The strong form of Van der Waerden's conjecture via twisted Chowla

Determining the properties of a random polynomial has fuelled significant investigation over the past century. One driving force of this research is a 1936 paper of Van der Waerden. Fix $n \geq 3$ and let $E_n(B)$ be the number of monic, irreducible, non-$S_n$ polynomials $f = X^n + a_1 X^{n-1} + \cdots + a_n$ with $|a_j| \leq B$ for all $j$. A recent breakthrough of Bhargava bounds $E_n(B) \ll B^{n-1}$. This spectacularly resolves a conjecture of Van der Waerden, but leaves open its stronger form, namely that $E_n(B) = o(B^{n-1})$. Inspired by recent progress, we now address this strong form. Bhargava's result, together with work of Chow and Dietmann, essentially reduces the strong Van der Waerden conjecture to the claim that the number of polynomials $f$ with Galois group $A_n$ is $o(B^{n-1})$. Assuming a twisted function field version of Chowla's conjecture, we prove this claim. This not only connects two active and challenging areas of research, but also conditionally resolves the strong Van der Waerden conjecture for all $n \geq 7$. Our proof is based on a variant of Heath-Brown and Pierce's square sieve and $q$-van der Corput differencing. Our methods also apply to the analogous problem of counting square discriminants of polynomials that are not necessarily monic. In addition to describing our new contributions, we briefly elaborate on the various conjectures appearing in Van der Waerden's paper and some of the exciting recent work of others in this area of arithmetic statistics.

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arXiv2026

Tamagawa ratios and unbounded Selmer moments

We develop a framework to predict whether a family of Selmer groups has average size that is bounded or unbounded. Applying this framework to certain geometric families of abelian varieties over $\mathbb{Q}$, we give a conjectural characterization of which such families have $\ell$-Selmer groups of unbounded average size for a given prime $\ell$. In the case that the $\ell$-torsion Galois module is constant across the family, we show that our characterization is correct. The key tool of our technique is the Greenberg--Wiles' formula, which expresses the ratio of the sizes of a Selmer group and the corresponding dual Selmer group as a product of local factors. This formula gives a purely local lower bound for the size of a Selmer group that we conjecture is close to sharp most of the time.

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arXiv2026

Hilbert's tenth problem for finitely generated rings

This expository article covers the recent developments surrounding Hilbert's tenth problem for finitely generated rings. We start by recounting the history of Hilbert's tenth problem over the integers, which was resolved negatively by Matiyasevich--Robinson--Davis--Putnam in 1970. In order to pass from $\mathbb{Z}$ to the finitely generated setting, we explain a criterion of Poonen that connects this to a problem in the theory of elliptic curves. Finally, we outline the main ideas behind the recent resolution of this elliptic curve problem by the authors.

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arXiv2025

Statistics of bad parts of class groups

Let $p$ be an odd prime. We give a formula for the bad part of $p$-class groups that is valid for $100\%$ of the abelian $p$-extensions when ordered by product of ramified primes.

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arXiv2025

Asymptotics for $6$-torsion and $D_6$-extensions

We prove a composite case of the Cohen--Lenstra--Gerth heuristics. Specifically, we establish an asymptotic for the average $6$-torsion of the class group of quadratic number fields. We also prove Malle's conjecture for Galois $D_6$-extensions.

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arXiv2025

Constructing Jacobians of rank 1

Let $K$ be a number field, let $g \geq 1$ be an integer and let $f(x) = (x - a_1) \cdots (x - a_{2g + 1}) \in O_K[x]$ be a polynomial that splits into $2g + 1$ distinct linear factors. Write $C$ for the hyperelliptic curve given by $C: y^2 = f(x)$ and write $J = \mathrm{Jac}(C)$ for its Jacobian. Under mild technical assumptions on $f$ that are satisfied almost always, we prove that there exists some $d \in K^\times$ such that the quadratic twist $J^d$ has rank exactly equal to $1$. As a consequence, we deduce that for any positive integer $g$, there exists an absolutely simple abelian variety over $K$ with dimension equal to $g$ and rank equal to $1$.

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arXiv2025

A new pointwise bound for $3$-torsion of class groups

Ellenberg--Venkatesh proved in 2007 that $h_3(d) \ll_\epsilon |d|^{1/3 + \epsilon}$, where $h_3(d)$ denotes the size of the $3$-torsion of the class group of $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})$. We improve this bound to $h_3(d) \ll_\epsilon |d|^{\kappa + \epsilon}$ with $\kappa \approx 0.3193 \cdots$. We also combine our methods with work of Heath-Brown--Pierce to give new bounds for average $\ell$-torsion of real quadratic fields.

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arXiv2025

Serre's problem for multiple conics

We prove the refined Loughran--Smeets conjecture of Loughran--Rome--Sofos for a wide class of varieties arising as products of conic bundles. One interesting feature of our varieties is that the subordinate Brauer group may be arbitrarily large. As an application of our methods, we answer a question of Lenstra by giving an asymptotic for the triples of integers $(a, b, c)$ for which the R\'edei symbol $[a, b, c]$ takes a given value. We also make significant progress on a question of Serre on the zero loci of systems of quaternion algebras defined over $\mathbb{Q}(t_1, \dots, t_n)$.

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arXiv2025

Local solubility of generalised Fermat equations

For every $n \geq 2$ we determine the asymptotic formula for the number of integer triples $(a,b,c)$ of bounded absolute value such that the generalised Fermat equation given by $ax^n+by^n+cz^n=0$ is everywhere locally soluble. We compute the leading constant, answering a question of Loughran--Rome--Sofos, and determine that the conjectures of Loughran--Smeets and Loughran--Rome--Sofos hold for such equations.

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arXiv2024

Hilbert's tenth problem via additive combinatorics

For all infinite rings $R$ that are finitely generated over $\mathbb{Z}$, we show that Hilbert's tenth problem has a negative answer. This is accomplished by constructing elliptic curves $E$ without rank growth in certain quadratic extensions $L/K$. To achieve such a result unconditionally, our key innovation is to use elliptic curves $E$ with full rational $2$-torsion which allows us to combine techniques from additive combinatorics with $2$-descent.

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arXiv2024

Elliptic fibrations and $3 \cdot 2^k$

We determine the order of magnitude for all exponential moments of the rank in a broad class of elliptic fibrations and for the $3 \cdot 2^k$-torsion in the class group of quadratic fields.

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arXiv2024

Elliptic curves and spin

In the early 2000s, Ramakrishna asked the question: For the elliptic curve $$ E: y^2 = x^3 - x, $$ what is the density of primes $p$ for which the Fourier coefficient $a_p(E)$ is a cube modulo $p$? As a generalization of this question, Weston--Zaurova formulated conjectures concerning the distribution of power residues of degree $m$ of the Fourier coefficients of elliptic curves $E/\mathbb{Q}$ with complex multiplication. In this paper, we prove their conjecture for cubic residues using the analytic theory of spin. Our proof works for all elliptic curves $E$ with complex multiplication.

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arXiv2024

Sums of rational cubes and the $3$-Selmer group

Recently, Alp\"oge-Bhargava-Shnidman determined the average size of the $2$-Selmer group in the cubic twist family of any elliptic curve over $\mathbb{Q}$ with $j$-invariant $0$. We obtain the distribution of the $3$-Selmer groups in the same family. As a consequence, we improve their upper bound on the density of integers expressible as a sum of two rational cubes. Assuming a $3$-converse theorem, we also improve their lower bound on this density. The $\sqrt{-3}$-Selmer group in this cubic twist family is well-known to be large, which poses significant challenges to the methods previously developed by the second author. We overcome this problem by strengthening the analytic core of these methods. Specifically, we prove a "trilinear large sieve" for an appropriate generalization of the classical R\'edei symbol, then use this to control the restriction of the Cassels-Tate pairing to the $\sqrt{-3}$-Selmer groups in these twist families.

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arXiv2024

Binary forms with the same value set I

Given a binary form $F \in \mathbb{Z}[X, Y]$, we define its value set to be $\{F(x, y) : (x, y) \in \mathbb{Z}^2\}$. Let $F, G \in \mathbb{Z}[X, Y]$ be two binary forms of degree $d \geq 3$ and with non-zero discriminant. In a series of three papers, we will give necessary and sufficient conditions on $F$ and $G$ to have the same value set. These conditions will be entirely in terms of the automorphism groups of the forms. In this paper, we will build the general theory that reduces the problem to a question about lattice coverings of $\mathbb{Z}^2$, and we solve this problem when $F$ and $G$ have a small automorphism group. The larger automorphism groups $D_4$ and $D_3, D_6$ will respectively be treated in part II and part III.

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