Sums of almost equal squares of primes

We study the representations of large integers $n$ as sums $p_1^2 + ... + p_s^2$, where $p_1,..., p_s$ are primes with $| p_i - (n/s)^{1/2} | \le n^{\theta/2}$, for some fixed $\theta 8/9$. This improves on earlier work by Liu, L\"{u} and Zhan, who established a similar result for $\theta > 9/10$. We also obtain estimates for the number of integers $n$ satisfying the necessary local conditions but lacking representations of the above form with $s = 3, 4$. When $s = 4$ our estimates improve and generalize recent results by L\"{u} and Zhai, and when $s = 3$ they appear to be first of their kind.