English

Escape of Mass of the $p$-Cantor Sequence

Number Theory 2025-10-23 v1 Combinatorics Dynamical Systems

Abstract

Let pp be a prime. In 2017, Kemarsky, Paulin, and Shapira (KPS) conjectured that any Laurent series over Fp\mathbb{F}_p exhibits full escape of mass with respect to any irreducible polynomial P(t)Fp[t]P(t)\in\mathbb{F}_p[t]. In 2025, this was shown to be false in the case p=2p=2 and P(t)=tP(t)=t by Nesharim, Shapira and the first named author. This work shows that for any odd prime pp and any irreducible polynomial P(t)Fp[t]P(t)\in\mathbb{F}_p[t], the so-called pp-Cantor sequence provides a counterexample to the aforementioned conjecture over Fp\mathbb{F}_p. Furthermore, the concepts of maximal escape of mass and generic escape of mass are introduced. These lead to two natural variations of the KPS conjecture, both of which are shown to hold for all previous counterexamples.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.19417,
  title  = {Escape of Mass of the $p$-Cantor Sequence},
  author = {Noy Soffer Aranov and Steven Robertson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.19417},
  year   = {2025}
}