arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Emmanuel Kowalski.
We study averages over squarefree moduli of the size of exponential sums with polynomial phases. We prove upper bounds on various moments of such sums, and obtain evidence of un-correlation of exponential sums associated to different suitably unrelated and generic polynomials. The proofs combine analytic arguments with the algebraic interpretation of exponential sums and their monodromy groups.
In the analytic study of trace functions of $\ell$-adic sheaves over finite fields, a crucial issue is to control the conductor of sheaves constructed in various ways. We consider cohomological transforms on the affine line over a finite field which have trace functions given by linear operators with an additive character of a rational function in two variables as a kernel. We prove that the conductor of such a transform is bounded in terms of the complexity of the input sheaf and of the rational function defining the kernel, and discuss applications of this result, including motivating examples arising from the Polymath8 project.
We prove the equidistribution of subsets of $(\Rr/\Zz)^n$ defined by fractional parts of subsets of~$(\Zz/q\Zz)^n$ that are constructed using the Chinese Remainder Theorem.
In this note, we characterize the limiting functions in mod-Gausssian convergence; our approach sheds a new light on the nature of mod-Gaussian convergence as well. Our results in fact more generally apply to mod-* convergence, where * stands for any family of probability distributions whose Fourier transforms do not vanish. We moreover provide new examples, including two new examples of (restricted) mod-Cauchy convergence from arithmetics related to Dedekind sums and the linking number of modular geodesics.
We prove that sums of length about $q^{3/2}$ of Hecke eigenvalues of automorphic forms on $SL_3(\Zz)$ do not correlate with $q$-periodic functions with bounded Fourier transform. This generalizes the earlier results of Munshi and Holowinsky--Nelson, corresponding to multiplicative Dirichlet characters, and applies in particular to trace functions of small conductor modulo primes.
For a fairly general family of L-functions, we survey the known consequences of the existence of asymptotic formulas with power-sawing error term for the (twisted) first and second moments of the central values in the family. We then consider in detail the important special case of the family of twists of a fixed cusp form by primitive Dirichlet characters modulo a prime q, and prove that it satisfies such formulas. We derive arithmetic consequences: - a positive proportion of central values L(f x chi, 1/2) are non-zero, and indeed bounded from below; - there exist many characters chi for which the central L-value is very large; - the probability of a large analytic rank decays exponentially fast. We finally show how the second moment estimate establishes a special case of a conjecture of Mazur and Rubin concerning the distribution of modular symbols.
We consider very general "random integers" and (attempt to) prove that many multiplicative and additive functions of such integers have limiting distributions. These integers include, for instance, the curvatures of Apollonian circle packings, trace of Frobenius elements for elliptic curves, the Ramanujan tau-function, Mersenne numbers, and many others.
We describe how a systematic use the deep methods from $\ell$-adic cohomology pioneered by Grothendieck and Deligne and further developed by Katz, Laumon allow to make progress on various classical questions from analytic number theory. This text is an extended version of a series of lectures given by the third and fourth authors during the 2016 Arizona Winter School.
A long standing problem in the area of error correcting codes asks whether there exist good cyclic codes. Most of the known results point in the direction of a negative answer. The uncertainty principle is a classical result of harmonic analysis asserting that given a non-zero function $f$ on some abelian group, either $f$ or its Fourier transform $\hat{f}$ has large support. In this note, we observe a connection between these two subjects. We point out that even a weak version of the uncertainty principle for fields of positive characteristic would imply that good cyclic codes do exist. We also provide some heuristic arguments supporting that this is indeed the case.
We revisit a recent bound of I. Shparlinski and T. P. Zhang on bilinear forms with Kloosterman sums, and prove an extension for correlation sums of Kloosterman sums against Fourier coefficients of modular forms. We use these bounds to improve on earlier results on sums of Kloosterman sums along the primes and on the error term of the fourth moment of Dirichlet $L$-functions.
We study the average of the product of the central values of two $L$-functions of modular forms $f$ and $g$ twisted by Dirichlet characters to a large prime modulus $q$. As our principal tools, we use spectral theory to develop bounds on averages of shifted convolution sums with differences ranging over multiples of $q$, and we use the theory of Deligne and Katz to estimate certain complete exponential sums in several variables and prove new bounds on bilinear forms in Kloosterman sums with power savings when both variables are near the square root of $q$. When at least one of the forms $f$ and $g$ is non-cuspidal, we obtain an asymptotic formula for the mixed second moment of twisted $L$-functions with a power saving error term. In particular, when both are non-cuspidal, this gives a significant improvement on M.~Young's asymptotic evaluation of the fourth moment of Dirichlet $L$-functions. In the general case, the asymptotic formula with a power saving is proved under a conjectural estimate for certain bilinear forms in Kloosterman sums.
We consider the question of the correlation of Fourier coefficients of modular forms with functions of algebraic origin. We establish the absence of correlation in considerable generality (with a power saving of Burgess type) and a corresponding equidistribution property for twisted Hecke orbits. This is done by exploiting the amplification method and the Riemann Hypothesis over finite fields, relying in particular on the ell-adic Fourier transform introduced by Deligne and studied by Katz and Laumon.
We consider the distribution of the polygonal paths joining partial sums of classical Kloosterman sums, as their parameter varies modulo a prime tending to infinity. Using independence of Kloosterman sheaves, we prove convergence in the sense of finite distributions to a specific random Fourier series. We also consider Birch sums, for which we can establish convergence in law in the space of continuous functions. We then derive some applications.
We show that the multiple divisor functions of integers in invertible residue classes modulo a prime number, as well as the Fourier coefficients of GL(N) Maass cusp forms for all N larger than 2, satisfy a central limit theorem in a suitable range, generalizing the case N=2 treated by E. Fouvry, S. Ganguly, E. Kowalski and P. Michel. Such universal Gaussian behaviour relies on a deep equidistribution result of products of hyper-Kloosterman sums.
We study sums over primes of trace functions of $\ell$-adic sheaves. Using an extension of our earlier results on algebraic twist of modular forms to the case of Eisenstein series and bounds for Type II sums based on similar applications of the Riemann Hypothesis over finite fields, we prove general estimates with power-saving for such sums. We then derive various concrete applications.
We show that the exponent of distribution of the ternary divisor function $d_3$ in arithmetic progressions to prime moduli is at least 1/2+1/46, improving results of Heath-Brown and Friedlander--Iwaniec. Furthermore, when averaging over a fixed residue class, we prove that this exponent is increased to 1/2 +1/34.
Using the Riemann Hypothesis over finite fields and bounds for the size of spherical codes, we give explicit upper bounds, of polynomial size with respect to the size of the field, for the number of geometric isomorphism classes of geometrically irreducible ell-adic middle-extension sheaves on a curve over a finite field which are pointwise pure of weight 0 and have bounded ramification and rank. As an application, we show that "random" functions defined on a finite field can not usually be approximated by short linear combinations of trace functions of sheaves with small complexity.
We prove estimates for the Gowers uniformity norms of functions over $\Zz/p\Zz$ which are trace functions of certain $\ell$-adic sheaves, and establish in particular a strong inverse theorem for these functions.