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Lecture

Quadratic Forms and Symmetries

In course

MATH-603: Subconvexity, Periods and Equidistribution

This course is a modern exposition of "Duke's Theorems" which describe the distribution of representations of large integers by a fixed ternary quadratic form. It will be the occasion to introduce the students to the adelic language, the theory of automorp ...

Description

This lecture covers the definition and properties of quadratic forms, including the notion of symmetries and similitudes. It explores the representation of quadratic forms and the concept of isotropic and anisotropic forms. The lecture also delves into orthogonal sums and affine algebraic varieties.

Instructor

Philippe Michel

Ph. Michel's main research interest lie in the field of analytic number theory and range over a variety of techniques and methods which include: arithmetic geometry, exponential sums, sieve methods, automorphic forms and allied representations, L-functions and more recently ergodic theory. Ph. Michel is a former student of ENS Cachan and obtained his PhD in Universté Paris XI in 1995 under the guidance of E. Fouvry. From 1995 to 1998 he was maître de conférence at Universté Paris XI and full professor at Université Montpellier II until 2008 then when he joined EPFL. Ph. Michel was awarded the Peccot-Vimont prize, has been member of the Institut Universitaire de France and wa invited speaker at the 2006 International Congress of Mathematician.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mathematics

Algebra: Linear algebra

Related concepts (32)

Isotropic quadratic form

In mathematics, a quadratic form over a field F is said to be isotropic if there is a non-zero vector on which the form evaluates to zero. Otherwise the quadratic form is anisotropic. More explicitly, if q is a quadratic form on a vector space V over F, then a non-zero vector v in V is said to be isotropic if q(v) = 0. A quadratic form is isotropic if and only if there exists a non-zero isotropic vector (or null vector) for that quadratic form. Suppose that (V, q) is quadratic space and W is a subspace of V.

Quadratic form

In mathematics, a quadratic form is a polynomial with terms all of degree two ("form" is another name for a homogeneous polynomial). For example, is a quadratic form in the variables x and y. The coefficients usually belong to a fixed field K, such as the real or complex numbers, and one speaks of a quadratic form over K. If , and the quadratic form equals zero only when all variables are simultaneously zero, then it is a definite quadratic form; otherwise it is an isotropic quadratic form.

Definite quadratic form

In mathematics, a definite quadratic form is a quadratic form over some real vector space V that has the same sign (always positive or always negative) for every non-zero vector of V. According to that sign, the quadratic form is called positive-definite or negative-definite. A semidefinite (or semi-definite) quadratic form is defined in much the same way, except that "always positive" and "always negative" are replaced by "never negative" and "never positive", respectively.

Ε-quadratic form

In mathematics, specifically the theory of quadratic forms, an ε-quadratic form is a generalization of quadratic forms to skew-symmetric settings and to *-rings; ε = ±1, accordingly for symmetric or skew-symmetric. They are also called -quadratic forms, particularly in the context of surgery theory. There is the related notion of ε-symmetric forms, which generalizes symmetric forms, skew-symmetric forms (= symplectic forms), Hermitian forms, and skew-Hermitian forms.

Null vector

In mathematics, given a vector space X with an associated quadratic form q, written (X, q), a null vector or isotropic vector is a non-zero element x of X for which q(x) = 0. In the theory of real bilinear forms, definite quadratic forms and isotropic quadratic forms are distinct. They are distinguished in that only for the latter does there exist a nonzero null vector. A quadratic space (X, q) which has a null vector is called a pseudo-Euclidean space.

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