The paucity problem for certain symmetric Diophantine equations

Abstract

Let $\varphi_1,\ldots ,\varphi_r\in \mathbb Z[z_1,\ldots z_k]$ be integral linear combinations of elementary symmetric polynomials with $\text{deg}(\varphi_j)=k_j$ $(1\le j\le r)$, where $1\le k_1<k_2<\ldots <k_r=k$. Subject to the condition $k_1+\ldots +k_r\ge \tfrac{1}{2}k(k-1)+2$, we show that there is a paucity of non-diagonal solutions to the Diophantine system $\varphi_j(\mathbf x)=\varphi_j(\mathbf y)$ $(1\le j\le r)$.