The logarithmic Sarnak conjecture for ergodic weights

DOI10.4007/ANNALS.2018.187.3.6MaRDI QIDQ1746449zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Nikos Frantzikinakis, Bernard Host

Publication date 25 April 2018

Published in Annals of Mathematics. Second Series (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.00677

Bernoulli system Chowla conjecture dynamical system ergodicity frequency Liouville function logarithmic frequency measure preserving system Möbius function nilsystem Sarnak conjecture

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Asymptotic results on arithmetic functions (11N37)

Abstract: The M"obius disjointness conjecture of Sarnak states that the M"obius function does not correlate with any bounded sequence of complex numbers arising from a topological dynamical system with zero topological entropy. We verify the logarithmically averaged variant of this conjecture for a large class of systems, which includes all uniquely ergodic systems with zero entropy. One consequence of our results is that the Liouville function has super-linear block growth. Our proof uses a disjointness argument and the key ingredient is a structural result for measure preserving systems naturally associated with the M"obius and the Liouville function. We prove that such systems have no irrational spectrum and their building blocks are infinite-step nilsystems and Bernoulli systems. To establish this structural result we make a connection with a problem of purely ergodic nature via some identities recently obtained by Tao. In addition to an ergodic structural result of Host and Kra, our analysis is guided by the notion of strong stationarity which was introduced by Furstenberg and Katznelson in the early 90's and naturally plays a central role in the structural analysis of measure preserving systems associated with multiplicative functions.

Review text

Let \(\lambda:\mathbb{N}\rightarrow\{-1,1\}\) be the Liouville function and \(\mu:\rightarrow\{-1,0,1\}\) be the Möbius function. The function \(\lambda\) is defined to be \(1\) on positive integers with an even number of prime factors, counted with multiplicity, and \(-1\) elsewhere. The Möbius function \(\mu\) is equal to \(\lambda\) on integers that are not divisible by any square number and is \(0\) otherwise. The pair \((Y,R)\) is called topological dynamical system if \(Y\) is a compact metric space and \(R:Y\rightarrow Y\) is a homeomorphism. The following assertion is called the Sarnak conjecture for ergodic weights: If \((Y,R)\) is a topological dynamical system with zero topological entropy, then \[ \lim_{N\rightarrow\infty}\frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{n=1}^N g\big(R^ny\big)\mu (n)=0 \] for every \(g\in C(Y)\) and \(y\in Y\). See, for instance, [\textit{P. Sarnak}, ``Möbius randomness and dynamics, Not. S. Afr. Math. Soc. 43, No. 2, 89--97 (2012)]. Among other interesting results, the authors of the paper prove the following logarithmic version of the Sarnak conjecture: Let \((Y,R)\) be a topological dynamical system with zero topological entropy and at most countable many ergodic invariant measures. Then then for every \(g\in C(Y)\) and \(y\in Y\) it holds that \[ \lim_{N\rightarrow\infty}\frac{1}{\log N}\sum\limits_{n=1}^N \frac{g\big(R^ny\big)\mu (n)}{n}=0. \] Moreover, a similar statement holds with the Liouville function \(\lambda\) instead of the function \(\mu\).

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