On the pair correlation density for hyperbolic angles (Q2339641)

Let \(\Lambda \subset \mathbb{R}^2\) be a Euclidean lattice. Then a classical result states that the angles of line segments connecting a point \(\alpha \in \mathbb{R}^2\) with the points of \(\Lambda\) contained in increasing balls around \(\alpha\) become equidistributed on the circle. A more detailed device for measuring the statistical properties of these angles is their \textit{pair correlation}; under certain number-theoretic assumptions on \(\alpha\), the distribution of these pair correlations is so-called Poissonian, that is, in accordance with the distribution of the pair correlations in the random setting. \textit{A. Boca} et al. [Int. J. Number Theory 10, No. 8, 1955--1989 (2014; Zbl 1304.11075)] studied the similar problem in the hyperbolic case, that is the problem concerning the pair correlations of the angles between geodesic rays of the lattice \(\Gamma \omega\) intersected with increasing balls centered at \(\omega\), where \(\Gamma < \text{PSL}_2(\mathbb{R})\) is a lattice and \(w \in \mathbb{H}\) is a point in the upper half-plane. Boca et al. [loc. cit.] formulated a conjecture for the formula of the limit distribution of the pair correlations in this setting, but could only give a proof in the case when \(\Gamma = \text{PSL}_2(\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\omega\) is an elliptic point. In the present paper, the full conjecture of Boca et al. [loc.cit.] is confirmed, by proving the existence of and giving a formula for the asymptotic density function for the distribution of the pair correlations for general \(\Gamma < \text{PSL}_2(\mathbb{R})\) and \(\omega \in \mathbb{H}\). The formula for this distribution is fully explicit, but too complicated to be reproduced here. Interestingly, the proof given for the main result in the present paper is totally different from the one given by Boca et al. [loc. cit.] for their result.