Counting fundamental solutions to the Pell equation with prescribed size

Abstract

The cardinality of the set of $D\leqslant x$ for which the fundamental solution of the Pell equation $t^2-Du^2=1$ is less than $D^{\frac{1}{2}+\alpha}$ with $\alpha\in[\frac{1}{2},1]$ is studied and certain lower bounds are obtained, improving previous results of Fouvry by introducing the $q$-analogue of van der Corput method to algebraic exponential sums with smooth moduli.