Remarks on the pair correlation statistic of Kronecker sequences and lattice point counting (Q6572410)

A sequence \((x_n)_{n\ge1}\) in \([0,1)\) has \(\beta\)-pair correlations, \(0 < \beta \le 1\), if \(\lim_{N\to\infty} \frac{1}{N^{2-\beta}} \# \{1 \le \ell \ne m \le N : \mathrm{dist}(x_\ell-x_m,\mathbb{Z}) \le \frac{s}{N^\beta}\} = 2s\) for all \(s \ge 0\). This is a generalization of Poissonian pair correlations (the case \(\beta = 1\)). The author shows that the Kronecker sequence \(\{n\alpha\}_{n\ge1}\) has \(\beta\)-pair correlations for all \(0 < \beta < 1\) when \(\alpha\) is badly approximable. The proof uses recently developed lattice point counting techniques, in particular a result of \textit{N. Technau} and \textit{M. Widmer} [Isr. J. Math. 240, No. 1, 99--117 (2020; Zbl 1470.11192)].