A two-dimensional delta symbol method and its application to pairs of quadratic forms

Abstract

We present a two-dimensional delta symbol method that facilitates a version of the Kloosterman refinement of the circle method, addressing a question posed by Heath-Brown. As an application, we establish the asymptotic formula for the number of integral points on a non-singular intersection of two integral quadratic forms with at least $10$ variables. Assuming the Generalized Lindel\"of Hypothesis, we reduce the number of variables to $9$ by performing a double Kloosterman refinement. A heuristic argument suggests our two-dimensional delta symbol will typically outperform known expressions of this type by an increasing margin as the number of variables grows.