On the discrepancy of point distributions on spheres and hyperbolic spaces (Q1849370)

Let \(Z=\{z_1,z_2,\ldots,z_N\}\) be a set of \(N\) points on the \(n\)-sphere \(S_n\). It is known from [\textit{J. Beck}, Acta Arith. 43, 115--130 (1984; Zbl 0536.10041)] that for \(\varepsilon,r>0\) the discrepancy \(D(Z,r)\) is bounded above by \(C_{\varepsilon,n}N^{\frac12-\frac1{2n}+\varepsilon}\). Here \(D(Z,r)\) is the discrepancy w.r.t. spherical caps of radius \(r\): \[ D(Z,r)=\sup_{z\in S_n}D(Z,z,r)= \sup_{z\in S_n} | \#(\{i\leq N: z_i\in B(z,r)\})-N\text{Vol}(B(z,r))| , \] where \(B(z,r)\) is a spherical cap on \(S_n\), i.e. the set of points \(x\) on \(S_n\) with \(\text{dist}(x,z)\leq r\). The author shows that this result is nearly best possible: For \(a,\varepsilon>0\) there is a spherical cap \(B(z,r)\) with \(| a-r| <\varepsilon\) such that \(D(Z,z,r)>C_{\varepsilon,n}N^{\frac12-\frac1{2n}}\). For the \(n\)-dimensional hyperbolic space, where the discrepancy of geodesic balls is defined w.r.t. an appropriate weight function, a similar estimate is obtained. The proof is based on noncommutative harmonic analysis.