TITLE: On circles and ellipses drawn on an infinite planar square lattice
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: Consider a plane with a square lattice formed by all points with both coordinates as integers. As can be easily seen, a simple parabola can be found that passes through infinitely many of the square lattice points. However,

Given any positive integer n, can we always find a sufficiently large circle drawn on the plane that passes through at least n lattice points? Can such circles be found if the center is not to be a lattice point? What if we require the circle to pass through exactly n lattice points?

Question 1 has a natural restatement if instead of circles, we look at ellipses (either all with a given eccentricity e or with e that can be freely chosen). The ellipses need not be axis parallel.

And what can one say if the lattice of points has as unit cell not a square but a general parallelogram?


Note 1: Lattice points on the boundary of an ellipse discusses a related question.
Additional Question (added after Prof. Elkies's affirmative answer to questions 1 to 3): What happens in 3D and higher dimensions?

REPLY [7 votes]: Such circles are known as Schinzel Circles. See also Kulikowski's Theorem for the sphere. According to zbmath Kulikowski proved his theorem in arbitrary dimension.