Extensions of Hilbert's Tenth Problem
Although Hilbert posed the problem for the rational integers, it can be just as well asked for many rings (in particular, for any ring whose elements are listable). Obvious examples are the rings of integers of algebraic number fields as well as the rational numbers. An algorithm such as he was requesting could have been extended to cover these other domains. For example, the equation
where is a polynomial of degree is solvable in non-negative rational numbers if and only if
is solvable in natural numbers. (If one possessed an algorithm to determine solvability in non-negative rational numbers, it could easily be used to determine solvability in the rationals.) However, knowing that there is no such algorithm as Hilbert had desired says nothing about these other domains.
There has been much work on Hilbert's tenth problem for the rings of integers of algebraic number fields. Basing themselves on earlier work by Jan Denef and Leonard Lipschitz and using class field theory, Harold N. Shapiro and Alexandra Shlapentokh were able to prove:
Hilbert's tenth problem is unsolvable for the ring of integers of any algebraic number field whose Galois group over the rationals is abelian.
Shlapentokh and Thanases Pheidas (independently of one another) obtained the same result for algebraic number fields admitting exactly one pair of complex conjugate embeddings.
The problem for the ring of integers of algebraic number fields other than those covered by the results above remains open. Likewise, despite much interest, the problem for equations over the rationals remains open. Barry Mazur has conjectured that for any variety over the rationals, the topological closure over the reals of the set of solutions has only finitely many components. This conjecture implies that the integers are not Diophantine over the rationals and so if this conjecture is true a negative answer to Hilbert's Tenth Problem would require a different approach than that used for other rings.
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