Forms representing forms and linear spaces on hypersurfaces

Abstract

A generalisation of Waring's problem, considered first by Arkhipov and Karatsuba, is the question of representing not an integer, but a given polynomial, as a sum of powers of linear polynomials. We investigate a related problem and prove a Hasse principle for the number of identical representations of a set of given forms by homogeneous polynomials of general shape. The result leads to sizeable improvements for estimates of the number of linear spaces on the intersection of hypersurfaces.