Reflection theorems of Ohno-Nakagawa type for quartic rings and pairs of $n$-ary quadratic forms

Abstract

We prove a reflection theorem, conjectured by Nakagawa and Ohno, for the number of quartic rings, or pairs of ternary quadratic forms, with a given cubic resolvent. Over $\mathbb{Z}$, our results are unconditional; we also allow the base to be the ring of integers of a general number field, conditional on some algebraic identities that are Monte Carlo verified. We also establish a reflection theorem for quartic $11111$-forms and $48441$-forms that relates them to the number of $3\times 3$ symmetric matrices with given characteristic polynomial. Along the way, we find elegant new results on Igusa zeta functions of conics and the average value of a quadratic character over a box in a local field. We conjecture that a reflection theorem holds for pairs of $n$-ary quadratic forms for any odd $n$, and we prove this for odd cubefree discriminant. This furnishes a more satisfactory answer for a question raised by Cohen, Diaz y Diaz, and Olivier, namely whether there exist an infinite family of reflection theorems of Ohno-Nakagawa type.