$\mathbb Q\setminus\mathbb Z$ is diophantine over $\mathbb Q$ with 32 unknowns

Geng-Rui Zhang, Zhi-Wei Sun

Published 2021-04-06Version 1

In 2016 J. Koenigsmann refined a celebrated theorem of J. Robinson by proving that $\mathbb Q\setminus\mathbb Z$ is diophantine over $\mathbb Q$, i.e., there is a polynomial $P(t,x_1,\ldots,x_{n})\in\mathbb Q[t,x_1,\ldots,x_{n}]$ such that for any rational number $t$ we have $$t\not\in\mathbb Z\iff \exists x_1\cdots\exists x_{n}[P(t,x_1,\ldots,x_{n})=0]$$ where variables range over $\mathbb Q$, equivalently $$t\in\mathbb Z\iff \forall x_1\cdots\forall x_{n}[P(t,x_1,\ldots,x_{n})\not=0].$$ In this paper we prove further that we may even take $n=32$ and require deg$\,P<6\times10^{11}$, which provides the best record in this direction. Combining this with a result of Sun, we get that there is no algorithm to decide for any $P(x_1,\ldots,x_{41})\in\mathbb Z[x_1,\ldots,x_{41}]$ whether $$\forall x_1\cdots\forall x_9\exists y_1\cdots\exists y_{32}[P(x_1,\ldots,x_9,y_1,\ldots,y_{32})=0].$$