Squarefree polynomials and Möbius values in short intervals and arithmetic progressions (Q264385)

In this paper, the authors calculate the mean and variance of sums of the Möbius function \(\mu\) and the indicator function of the squarefrees \(\mu^2\), in both short intervals and arithmetic progressions, in the context of the ring \(\mathbb{F}_q[t]\) of polynomials over a finite field \(\mathbb{F}_q\) of \(q\) elements, in the limit \(q\to \infty\). Their approach differs from those traditionally employed in the number field setting: they use recent equidistribution results due to N. Katz, valid in the large-\(q\) limit, to express the mean and variance of the fluctuations in terms of matrix integrals over the unitary group. For many of the problems studied in the paper, the formulae they obtain match the corresponding number-field results and conjectures exactly, providing further support in the latter case. However, the ranges of validity that they can establish are significantly greater than those known or previously conjectured for the integers, and their results can be considered as supporting extensions to much wider ranges of validity in the integer setting. In some other problems, they uncover subtle and surprising differences between the function-field and number-field asymptotics, which they examine in detail.