English

Poissonian correlation of higher order differences

Number Theory 2020-12-15 v2

Abstract

A sequence (xn)n=1(x_n)_{n=1}^{\infty} on the torus T\mathbb{T} exhibits Poissonian pair correlation if for all s0s\geq0, \begin{equation*} \lim_{N\to\infty} \frac{1}{N}\#\left\{1\leq m\neq n \leq N : |x_m-x_n| \leq \frac{s}{N}\right\} = 2s. \end{equation*} It is known that this condition implies equidistribution of (xn)(x_n). We generalize this result to four-fold differences: if for all s>0s> 0 we have \begin{equation*} \lim_{N\to\infty} \frac{1}{N^2}\#\left\{\substack{1\leq m,n,k,l\leq N\\\{m,n\}\neq\{k,l\}} : |x_m+x_n-x_k-x_l| \leq \frac{s}{N^2}\right\} = 2s \end{equation*} then (xn)n=1(x_n)_{n=1}^{\infty} is equidistributed. This notion generalizes to higher orders, and for any kk we show that a sequence exhibiting 2k2k-fold Poissonian correlation is equidistributed. In the course of this investigation we obtain a discrepancy bound for a sequence in terms of its closeness to 2k2k-fold Poissonian correlation. This result refines earlier bounds of Grepstad & Larcher and Steinerberger in the case of pair correlation, and resolves an open question of Steinerberger.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.05421,
  title  = {Poissonian correlation of higher order differences},
  author = {Alex Cohen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.05421},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

15 pages, to appear in Journal of Number Theory

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:11:54.918Z