Integral points of small height outside of a hypersurface

Abstract

Let $F$ be a non-zero polynomial with integer coefficients in $N$ variables of degree $M$. We prove the existence of an integral point of small height at which $F$ does not vanish. Our basic bound depends on $N$ and $M$ only. We separately investigate the case when $F$ is decomposable into a product of linear forms, and provide a more sophisticated bound. We also relate this problem to a certain extension of Siegel's Lemma as well as to Faltings' version of it. Finally we exhibit an application of our results to a discrete version of the Tarski plank problem.