Entropy and diffraction of the \(k\)-free points in \(n\)-dimensional lattices (Q2391840)

Let \(\Lambda\) be a lattice in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) and \(k\) be a positive integer. The \(k\)-content of a point \({\mathbf l}\neq 0\) in \(\Lambda\) is the largest integer \(c\) such that \({\mathbf l} \in c^k\Lambda\). The \(k\)-free points of \(\Lambda\) are points with \(k\)-content equal to \(1\). The set of \(k\)-free points, denoted by \(V=V(\Lambda, k)\), is uniformly discrete, but has arbitrarily large holes. The first main result of the paper shows that the patch-counting entropy (which coincides with the topological entropy in some setting) of \(V\) is \(1/\zeta(nk)\), where \(\zeta(\cdot)\) is the Riemann zeta function defined by \(\zeta(s)=\sum_{n=1}^\infty n^{-s}\). It is also proved that the measure entropy (defined in terms of the frequency of occurrence of patches) of \(V\) is \(0\). By considering the topological dynamical system \((\{0,1\}^\Lambda, \Lambda)\), i.e., the natural translation action of the group \(\Lambda\) on \(\{0,1\}^\Lambda\), the authors obtain a variational principle: the patch-counting entropy is the supremum of the metric entropies of \(\Lambda\)-invariant probability measures. The other main part of the paper is devoted to the diffraction spectrum of \(V\). For \(R>0\), let \(B_R({\mathbf 0})\) be the ball of radius \(R\) and center \({\mathbf 0}\). Denote by \(v_n\) the volume of \(B_1({\mathbf 0})\). Define the autocorrection \(\gamma\) of \(V\) by the weak limit of \({1\over v_nR^n} \sum_{{\mathbf x}, {\mathbf y}\in V\cap B_R({\mathbf 0})} \delta_{{\mathbf x}-{\mathbf y}}\). The diffraction spectrum of \(V\), which is the Fourier transform of \(\gamma\), exists and is well calculated in the paper.