The first comprehensive and up-to-date account of discriminant equations and their applications. For graduate students and researchers.

Jan-Hendrik Evertse works in the Mathematical Institute at Leiden University. His research concentrates on Diophantine approximation and applications to Diophantine problems. In this area he has obtained some influential results, in particular on estimates for the numbers of solutions of Diophantine equations and inequalities.

Preface; Summary; Part I. Preliminaries: 1. Finite étale algebras over fields; 2. Dedekind domains; 3. Algebraic number fields; 4. Tools from the theory of unit equations; Part II. Monic Polynomials and Integral Elements of Given Discriminant, Monogenic Orders: 5. Basic finiteness theorems; 6. Effective results over Z; 7. Algorithmic resolution of discriminant form and index form equations; 8. Effective results over the S-integers of a number field; 9. The number of solutions of discriminant equations; 10. Effective results over finitely generated domains; 11. Further applications; Part III. Binary Forms of Given Discriminant: 12. A brief overview of the basic finiteness theorems; 13. Reduction theory of binary forms; 14. Effective results for binary forms of given discriminant; 15. Semi-effective results for binary forms of given discriminant; 16. Invariant orders of binary forms; 17. On the number of equivalence classes of binary forms of given discriminant; 18. Further applications; Glossary of frequently used notation; References; Index.