English

Harper's beyond square-root conjecture

Number Theory 2025-09-16 v2 Probability

Abstract

We explain how the (shifted) Ratios Conjecture for L(s,χ)L(s,\chi) would extend a randomization argument of Harper from a conductor-limited range to an unlimited range of ``beyond square-root cancellation'' for character twists of the Liouville function. As a corollary, the Liouville function would have nontrivial cancellation in arithmetic progressions of modulus just exceeding the well-known square-root barrier. Morally, the paper passes from random matrices to random multiplicative functions.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.04094,
  title  = {Harper's beyond square-root conjecture},
  author = {Victor Y. Wang and Max Wenqiang Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.04094},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

27 pages; final version

R2 v1 2026-06-28T16:19:07.646Z