English

Sarnak's Conjecture for nilsequences on arbitrary number fields and applications

Number Theory 2023-01-16 v2 Combinatorics Dynamical Systems

Abstract

We formulate the generalized Sarnak's M\"obius disjointness conjecture for an arbitrary number field KK, and prove a quantitative disjointness result between polynomial nilsequences (Φ(g(n)Γ))nZD(\Phi(g(n)\Gamma))_{n\in\mathbb{Z}^{D}} and aperiodic multiplicative functions on OK\mathcal{O}_{K}, the ring of integers of KK. Here D=[K ⁣:Q]D=[K\colon\mathbb{Q}], X=G/ΓX=G/\Gamma is a nilmanifold, g ⁣:ZDGg\colon\mathbb{Z}^{D}\to G is a polynomial sequence, and Φ ⁣:XC\Phi\colon X\to \mathbb{C} is a Lipschitz function. The proof uses tools from multi-dimensional higher order Fourier analysis, multi-linear analysis, orbit properties on nilmanifold, and an orthogonality criterion of K\'atai in OK\mathcal{O}_{K}. We also use variations of this result to derive applications in number theory and combinatorics: (1) we prove a structure theorem for multiplicative functions on KK, saying that every bounded multiplicative function can be decomposed into the sum of an almost periodic function (the structural part) and a function with small Gowers uniformity norm of any degree (the uniform part); (2) we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the Gowers norms of a bounded multiplicative function in OK\mathcal{O}_{K} to be zero; (3) we provide partition regularity results over KK for a large class of homogeneous equations in three variables. For example, for a,bZ\{0}a,b\in\mathbb{Z}\backslash\{0\}, we show that for every partition of OK\mathcal{O}_{K} into finitely many cells, where K=Q(a,b,a+b)K=\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{a},\sqrt{b},\sqrt{a+b}), there exist distinct and non-zero x,yx,y belonging to the same cell and zOKz\in\mathcal{O}_{K} such that ax2+by2=z2ax^{2}+by^{2}=z^{2}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1902.09712,
  title  = {Sarnak's Conjecture for nilsequences on arbitrary number fields and applications},
  author = {Wenbo Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.09712},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

65 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T07:51:08.832Z