Generalized Pell’s equations and Weber’s class number problem

Abstract

We study a generalization of Pell’s equation, whose coefficients are certain algebraic integers. Let X 0 =0 and X n =2+X n-1 for each n∈ℤ ≥1 . We study the ℤ[X n-1 ]-solutions of the equation x 2 -X n 2 y 2 =1. By imitating the solution to the classical Pell’s equation, we introduce new continued fraction expansions for X n over ℤ[X n-1 ] and obtain an explicit solution of the generalized Pell’s equation. In addition, we show that our explicit solution generates all the solutions if and only if the answer to Weber’s class number problem is affirmative. We also obtain a congruence relation for the ratios of the class numbers of the ℤ 2 -extension over the rationals and show the convergence of the class numbers in ℤ 2 .