The Distribution of Zeros of Quadratic Forms over Finite Fields
Ali Hafiz Hakami · Journal of Mathematics Research · 2015
Let $m$ be a positive integer with $m 2$ even. Set $\Delta = \det Q$ such that $\chi \left( {( - 1)^{n/2} \Delta } \right) = 1.$ We shall motivate work of (Cochrane, 1986) to obtain lower bounds on $m,$ size of the box $\mathcal{B},$ so that $\mathcal{B} \cap V$ is nonempty. For this we show that the box $\mathcal{B}(m)$ contains a zero of $Q({\mathbf{x}})$ provided that $m \geqslant p^{1/2}.$ We also show that the box $\mathcal{B}(m)$ contains $n$ linearly independent zeros of $Q({\mathbf{x}})$ provided that $m \geqslant 2^{n/2} p^{1/2} .$