Distribution of random multiplicative functions in short intervals, with proper normalization
Number Theory
2026-06-27 v1 Probability
Abstract
We determine the limiting distribution of partial sums of a Steinhaus random multiplicative function over short intervals , where but . We show that with appropriate normalization, the limiting distribution is Gaussian for all such . A key new feature of our result is that the normalization factor is different from the standard deviation when is very close to . In contrast, when there is no normalization for which the limiting distribution is a non-degenerate Gaussian.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2606.29040,
title = {Distribution of random multiplicative functions in short intervals, with proper normalization},
author = {Adam J. Harper and Kannan Soundararajan and Max Wenqiang Xu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.29040},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
51 pages, including 11 page introduction