Quadratic diophantine equations with applications to quartic equations

Abstract

In this paper, we first show that, under certain conditions, the solution of a single quadratic diophantine equation in four variables $Q(x_1,\,x_2,\,x_3,\,x_4)=0$ can be expressed in terms of bilinear forms in four parameters. We use this result to establish a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for the solvability of the simultaneous quadratic diophantine equations \[ Q_j(x_1,\ x_2,\ x_3,\ x_4)=0,\quad j=1,\ 2, \] and give a method of obtaining their complete solution. In general, when these two equations have a rational solution, they represent an elliptic curve, but we show that there are several cases in which their complete solution may be expressed by a finite number of parametric solutions and/or a finite number of primitive integer solutions. Finally, we relate the solutions of the quartic equation \[ y^2=t^4+a_1t^3+a_2t^2+a_3t+a_4 \] to the solutions of a pair of quadratic diophantine equations, and thereby obtain new formulae for deriving rational solutions of the aforementioned quartic equation starting from one or two known solutions.