On the rational equivalence of full decomposable forms

Abstract

Let k be any finite normal extension of the rational field Q and fix an order D of k invariant under the galois group G( k Q ) . Consider the set F of the full decomposable forms which correspond to the invertible fractional ideals of D. In a recent paper the author has given arithmetic criteria to determine which classes of improperly equivalent forms in F integrally represent a given positive rational integer m. These criteria are formulated in terms of certain integer sequences which satisfy a linear recursion and need only be considered modulo the primes dividing m. Here, for the most part, we consider partitioning F under rational equivalence. It is a found that the set of rationally equivalent classes in F is a group under composition of forms analogous to Gauss' and Dirichlet's classical results for binary quadratic forms. This leads us to given criteria as before to determine which classes of rationally equivalent forms in F rationally represent m. Moreover, by applying the genus theory of number fields, we find arithmetic criteria to determine when everywhere local norms are global norms if the Hasse norm principle fails to hold in k Q .