Additive energy and the Hausdorff dimension of the exceptional set in metric pair correlation problems (Q1686320)

For a sequence of integers \(\{a(x)\}_{x\geq1}\), the authors show that the distribution of the pair correlations of the fractional parts of \(\{\langle\alpha a(x)\rangle\}_{x\geq1}\) is asymptotically Poissonian for almost all \(\alpha\) if the additive energy of truncations of the sequence has a power savings improvement over the trivial estimate. Furthermore, the authors provide an estimate for the Hausdorff dimension of the exceptional set as a function of the density of the sequence and the power savings in the energy estimate. A consequence of these results is that the Hausdorff dimension of the set of \(\alpha\) such that \(\{\langle\alpha x^d\rangle\}\) fails to have Poissonian pair correlation is at most \((d+2)/(d+3)\). This strengthens a result of \textit{Z. Rudnick} and \textit{P. Sarnak} [Commun. Math. Phys. 194, No. 1, 61--70 (1998; Zbl 0919.11052)] stating that the exceptional set has Lebesgue measure zero. On the other hand, classical examples imply that the exceptional set has Hausdorff dimension at least \(2/(d+1)\). An appendix by J. Bourgain was added after the first version of the present paper was written, in which two problems raised in the original version are solved.