Multiple recurrence in quasirandom groups

Abstract

We establish a new mixing theorem for quasirandom groups (finite groups with no low-dimensional unitary representations) $G$ which, informally speaking, asserts that if $g, x$ are drawn uniformly at random from $G$, then the quadruple $(g,x,gx,xg)$ behaves like a random tuple in $G^4$, subject to the obvious constraint that $gx$ and $xg$ are conjugate to each other. The proof is non-elementary, proceeding by first using an ultraproduct construction to replace the finitary claim on quasirandom groups with an infinitary analogue concerning a limiting group object that we call an \emph{ultra quasirandom group}, and then using the machinery of idempotent ultrafilters to establish the required mixing property for such groups. Some simpler recurrence theorems (involving tuples such as $(x,gx,xg)$) are also presented, as well as some further discussion of specific examples of ultra quasirandom groups.