Rational points on a class of cubic hypersurfaces

Abstract

Abstract Let r ⩾ 3 r\geqslant 3 be an integer and 𝑄 any positive definite quadratic form in 𝑟 variables. We establish asymptotic formulae with power-saving error terms for the number of rational points of bounded height on singular hypersurfaces S Q S_{Q} defined by x 3 = Q ⁢ ( y 1 , … , y r ) ⁢ z x^{3}=Q(y_{1},\dots,y_{r})z . This confirms Manin’s conjecture for any S Q S_{Q} . Our proof is based on analytic methods, and uses some estimates for character sums and moments of 𝐿-functions. In particular, one of the ingredients is Siegel’s mass formula in the argument for the case r = 3 r=3 .