Generalized Fourier coefficients of multiplicative functions (Q1993987)

Given a positive integer \(H\geq 1\), let \(\mathcal{M}_H\) denotes the class of multiplicative arithmetic functions \(f:\mathbb{N}\rightarrow\mathbb{C}\) satisfying \(|f(p^k)|\leq H^k\) for all prime powers \(p^k\), and \[ \frac{1}{x}\sum_{p\leq x}|f(p)|\log p\geq\alpha_f \] for a positive constant \(\alpha_f\) and for all sufficiently large \(x\). The purpose of the paper under review is to study correlations of multiplicative functions, more specifically of functions from \(\mathcal{M}_H\), with polynomial nilsequences. The author shows that in general, such correlations can only be shown to be small if either the nilsequence is highly equidistributed or else if the multiplicative function is equidistributed in progressions with short common difference. To do this, she obtains a suitable Dirichlet decomposition for \(f\in\mathcal{M}_H\) by showing that every function \(f\in\mathcal{M}_H\) has a decomposition \(f=f_1*\dots*f_H\) into multiplicative functions \(f_i\) such that the \(L^2\)-norms of the \(f_i\) are controlled on average by the mean value of \(f\). This decomposition allows she to employ the Montgomery--Vaughan approach to the individual factors. This approach reduces matters to bounding correlations of sequences defined in terms of primes. One type of correlation that appears will be handled with the help of Green and Tao's bound on the correlation of the ``\(W\)-tricked von Mangoldt function'' with nilsequences. Carrying out the Montgomery-Vaughan approach in the nilsequences setting makes it necessary to understand the equidistribution properties of certain families of product nilsequences which result from an application of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. More precisely, she shows that most of these products are equidistributed provided the original sequence that these products are derived from was equidistributed. The latter can be achieved by the Green-Tao factorization theorem for nilsequences. An important feature of the present work of the author is that it applies to a large class of unbounded functions.