ON WARING’S PROBLEM IN SUMS OF THREE CUBES FOR SMALLER POWERS

We give an upper bound for the minimum s with the property that every sufficiently large integer can be represented as the sum of s positive kth powers of integers, each of which is represented as the sum of three positive cubes for the cases $2\leq k\leq 4.$

Arithmetic of higher-dimensional orbifolds and a mixed Waring problem

We study the density of rational points on a higher-dimensional orbifold $$(\mathbb {P}^{n-1},\Delta )$$ ( P n - 1 , Δ ) when $$\Delta $$ Δ is a $$\mathbb {Q}$$ Q -divisor involving hyperplanes. This allows us to address a question of Tanimoto about whether the set of rational points on such an orbifold constitutes a thin set. Our approach relies on the Hardy–Littlewood circle method to first study an asymptotic version of Waring’s problem for mixed powers. In doing so we make crucial use of the recent resolution of the main conjecture in Vinogradov’s mean value theorem, due to Bourgain–Demeter–Guth and Wooley.