arXiv subjects

Nikos Frantzikinakis

Publications and source records attributed to Nikos Frantzikinakis.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Ergodic averages for sparse corners

We develop a framework for the study of the limiting behavior of multiple ergodic averages with commuting transformations when all iterates are given by the same sparse sequence; this enables us to partially resolve several longstanding problems. First, we address a special case of the joint intersectivity question of Bergelson, Leibman, and Lesigne by giving necessary and sufficient conditions under which the multidimensional polynomial Szemer\'edi theorem holds for length-three patterns. Second, we show that for two commuting transformations, the Furstenberg averages remain unchanged when the iterates are taken along sparse sequences such as $[n^c]$ for a positive noninteger $c$, advancing a conjecture of the first author. Third, we extend a result of Chu on popular common differences in linear corners to polynomial and Hardy corners. Lastly, we answer open problems of Le, Moreira, and Richter concerning decomposition results for double correlation sequences. Our toolbox includes recent degree lowering and seminorm smoothing techniques, the machinery of magic extensions of Host, and novel structured extensions motivated by works of Tao and Leng. Combined, these techniques reduce the analysis to settings where the Host-Kra theory of characteristic factors and equidistribution on nilmanifolds yield a family of striking identities from which our main results follow.

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arXiv2025

Recurrence for pretentious systems along generalized Pythagorean triples

We establish multiple recurrence results for pretentious measure-preserving multiplicative actions along generalized Pythagorean triples, that is, solutions to the equation $ax^2 + b y^2 = c z^2$. This confirms the ergodic-theoretic form of the generalized Pythagorean partition regularity conjecture in this critical case of structured measure-preserving actions. As a consequence of our main theorem, any finite coloring of $\mathbb{N}$ generated by the level sets of finitely many pretentious completely multiplicative functions, must contain a monochromatic generalized Pythagorean triple.

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arXiv2025

Decomposition results for multiplicative actions and applications

Motivated by partition regularity problems of homogeneous quadratic equations, we prove multiple recurrence and convergence results for multiplicative measure preserving actions with iterates given by rational sequences involving polynomials that factor into products of linear forms in two variables. We focus mainly on actions that are finitely generated, and the key tool in our analysis is a decomposition result for any bounded measurable function into a sum of two components, one that mimics concentration properties of pretentious multiplicative functions and another that mimics vanishing properties of aperiodic multiplicative functions. Crucial to part of our arguments are some new seminorms that are defined by a mixture of addition and multiplication of the iterates of the action, and we prove an inverse theorem that explicitly characterizes the factor of the system on which these seminorms vanish.

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arXiv2024

Partition regularity of homogeneous quadratics: Current trends and challenges

Suppose we partition the integers into finitely many cells. Can we always find a solution of the equation $x^2+y^2=z^2$ with $x,y,z$ on the same cell? What about more general homogeneous quadratic equations in three variables? These are basic questions in arithmetic Ramsey theory, which have recently been partially answered using ideas inspired by ergodic theory and tools such as Gowers-uniformity properties and concentration estimates of bounded multiplicative functions. The aim of this article is to provide an introduction to this exciting research area, explaining the main ideas behind the recent progress and some of the important challenges that lie ahead.

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arXiv2024

Partition regularity of generalized Pythagorean pairs

We address partition regularity problems for homogeneous quadratic equations. A consequence of our main results is that, under natural conditions on the coefficients $a,b,c$, for any finite coloring of the positive integers, there exists a solution to $ax^2+by^2=cz^2$ where $x$ and $y$ have the same color (and similar results for $x,z$ and $y,z$). For certain choices of $(a,b,c)$, our result is conditional on an Elliott-type conjecture. Our proofs build on and extend previous arguments of the authors dealing with the Pythagorean equation. We make use of new uniformity properties of aperiodic multiplicative functions and concentration estimates for multiplicative functions along arbitrary binary quadratic forms.

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arXiv2024

Bohr recurrence and density of non-lacunary semigroups of $\mathbb{N}$

A subset $R$ of integers is a set of Bohr recurrence if every rotation on $\mathbb{T}^d$ returns arbitrarily close to zero under some non-zero multiple of $R$. We show that the set $\{k!\, 2^m3^n\colon k,m,n\in \mathbb{N}\}$ is a set of Bohr recurrence. This is a particular case of a more general statement about images of such sets under any integer polynomial with zero constant term. We also show that if $P$ is a real polynomial with at least one non-constant irrational coefficient, then the set $\{P(2^m3^n)\colon m,n\in \mathbb{N}\}$ is dense in $\mathbb{T}$, thus providing a joint generalization of two well-known results, one of Furstenberg and one of Weyl.

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arXiv2023

Partition regularity of Pythagorean pairs

We address a core partition regularity problem in Ramsey theory by proving that every finite coloring of the positive integers contains monochromatic Pythagorean pairs, i.e., $x,y\in \mathbb{N}$ such that $x^2\pm y^2=z^2$ for some $z\in \mathbb{N}$. We also show that partitions generated by level sets of multiplicative functions taking finitely many values always contain Pythagorean triples. Our proofs combine known Gowers uniformity properties of aperiodic multiplicative functions with a novel and rather flexible approach based on concentration estimates of multiplicative functions.

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arXiv2023

Degree lowering for ergodic averages along arithmetic progressions

We examine the limiting behavior of multiple ergodic averages associated with arithmetic progressions whose differences are elements of a fixed integer sequence. For each $\ell$, we give necessary and sufficient conditions under which averages of length $\ell$ of the aforementioned form have the same limit as averages of $\ell$-term arithmetic progressions. As a corollary, we derive a sufficient condition for the presence of arithmetic progressions with length $\ell+1$ and restricted differences in dense subsets of integers. These results are a consequence of the following general theorem: in order to verify that a multiple ergodic average is controlled by the degree $d$ Gowers-Host-Kra seminorm, it suffices to show that it is controlled by some Gowers-Host-Kra seminorm, and that the degree $d$ control follows whenever we have degree $d+1$ control. The proof relies on an elementary inverse theorem for the Gowers-Host-Kra seminorms involving dual functions, combined with novel estimates on averages of seminorms of dual functions. We use these estimates to obtain a higher order variant of the degree lowering argument previously used to cover averages that converge to the product of integrals.

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arXiv2023

Furstenberg systems of pretentious and MRT multiplicative functions

We prove structural results for measure preserving systems, called Furstenberg systems, naturally associated with bounded multiplicative functions. We show that for all pretentious multiplicative functions these systems always have rational discrete spectrum and, as a consequence, zero entropy. We obtain several other refined structural and spectral results, one consequence of which is that the Archimedean characters are the only pretentious multiplicative functions that have Furstenberg systems with trivial rational spectrum, another is that a pretentious multiplicative function has ergodic Furstenberg systems if and only if it pretends to be a Dirichlet character, and a last one is that for any fixed pretentious multiplicative function all its Furstenberg systems are isomorphic. We also study structural properties of Furstenberg systems of a class of multiplicative functions, introduced by Matom\"aki, Radziwill, and Tao, which lie in the intermediate zone between pretentiousness and strong aperiodicity. In a work of the last two authors and Gomilko, several examples of this class with exotic ergodic behavior were identified, and here we complement this study and discover some new unexpected phenomena. Lastly, we prove that Furstenberg systems of general bounded multiplicative functions have divisible spectrum. When these systems are obtained using logarithmic averages, we show that trivial rational spectrum implies a strong dilation invariance property, called strong stationarity, but, quite surprisingly, this property fails when the systems are obtained using Ces\`aro averages.

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arXiv2023

Joint ergodicity of sequences

A collection of integer sequences is jointly ergodic if for every ergodic measure preserving system the multiple ergodic averages, with iterates given by this collection of sequences, converge in the mean to the product of the integrals. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for joint ergodicity that are flexible enough to recover most of the known examples of jointly ergodic sequences and also allow us to answer some related open problems. An interesting feature of our arguments is that they avoid deep tools from ergodic theory that were previously used to establish similar results. Our approach is primarily based on an ergodic variant of a technique pioneered by Peluse and Prendiville in order to give quantitative variants for the finitary version of the polynomial Szemerédi theorem.

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arXiv2023

Multiple recurrence and convergence without commutativity

We establish multiple recurrence and convergence results for pairs of zero entropy measure preserving transformations that do not satisfy any commutativity assumptions. Our results cover the case where the iterates of the two transformations are $n$ and $n^k$ respectively, where $k\geq 2$, and the case $k=1$ remains an open problem. Our starting point is based on the observation that Furstenberg systems of sequences of the form $(f(T^{n^k}x))$ have very special structural properties when $k\geq 2$. We use these properties and some disjointness arguments in order to get characteristic factors with nilpotent structure for the corresponding ergodic averages, and then finish the proof using some equidistribution results on nilmanifolds.

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arXiv2022

Seminorm control for ergodic averages with commuting transformations and pairwise dependent polynomial iterates

We examine multiple ergodic averages of commuting transformations with polynomial iterates in which the polynomials may be pairwise dependent. In particular, we show that such averages are controlled by the Gowers-Host-Kra seminorms whenever the system satisfies some mild ergodicity assumptions. Combining this result with the general criteria for joint ergodicity established in our earlier work, we determine a necessary and sufficient condition under which such averages are jointly ergodic, in the sense that they converge in the mean to the product of integrals, or weakly jointly ergodic, in that they converge to the product of conditional expectations. As a corollary, we deduce a special case of a conjecture by Donoso, Koutsogiannis, and Sun in a stronger form.

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arXiv2022

Joint ergodicity for commuting transformations and applications to polynomial sequences

We give necessary and sufficient conditions for joint ergodicity results of collections of sequences with respect to systems of commuting measure preserving transformations. Combining these results with a new technique that we call "seminorm smoothening", we settle several conjectures related to multiple ergodic averages of commuting transformations with polynomial iterates. We show that the Host-Kra factor is characteristic for pairwise independent polynomials, and that under certain ergodicity conditions the associated ergodic averages converge to the product of integrals. Moreover, when the polynomials are linearly independent, we show that the rational Kronecker factor is characteristic and deduce Khintchine-type lower bounds for the related multiple recurrence problem. Finally, we prove a nil plus null decomposition result for multiple correlation sequences of commuting transformations in the case where the iterates are given by families of pairwise independent polynomials.

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arXiv2022

Joint ergodicity of fractional powers of primes

We establish mean convergence for multiple ergodic averages with iterates given by distinct fractional powers of primes and related multiple recurrence results. A consequence of our main result is that every set of integers with positive upper density contains patterns of the form $\{m,m+[p_n^a], m+[p_n^b]\}$, where $a,b$ are positive non-integers and $p_n$ denotes the $n$-th prime, a property that fails if $a$ or $b$ is a natural number. Our approach is based on a recent criterion for joint ergodicity of collections of sequences and the bulk of the proof is devoted to obtaining good seminorm estimates for the related multiple ergodic averages. The input needed from number theory are upper bounds for the number of prime $k$-tuples that follow from elementary sieve theory estimates and equidistribution results of fractional powers of primes in the circle.

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arXiv2021

Furstenberg systems of Hardy field sequences and applications

We study measure preserving systems, called Furstenberg systems, that model the statistical behavior of sequences defined by smooth functions with at most polynomial growth. Typical examples are the sequences $(n^\frac{3}{2})$, $(n\log{n})$, and $([n^\frac{3}{2}]α)$, $α\in \mathbb{R}\setminus\mathbb{Q}$, where the entries are taken $\mod{1}$. We show that their Furstenberg systems arise from unipotent transformations on finite dimensional tori with some invariant measure that is absolutely continuous with respect to the Haar measure and deduce that they are disjoint from every ergodic system. We also study similar problems for sequences of the form $(g(S^{[n^{\frac{3}{2}}]} y))$, where $S$ is a measure preserving transformation on the probability space $(Y,ν)$, $g\in L^\infty(ν)$, and $y$ is a typical point in $Y$. We prove that the corresponding Furstenberg systems are strongly stationary and deduce from this a multiple ergodic theorem and a multiple recurrence result for measure preserving transformations of zero entropy that do not satisfy any commutativity conditions.

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arXiv2020

Good weights for the Erdős discrepancy problem

The Erdős discrepancy problem, now a theorem by T. Tao, asks whether every sequence with values plus or minus one has unbounded discrepancy along all homogeneous arithmetic progressions. We establish weighted variants of this problem, for weights given either by structured sequences that enjoy some irrationality features, or certain random sequences. As an intermediate result, we establish unboundedness of weighted sums of bounded multiplicative functions and products of shifts of such functions. A key ingredient in our analysis for the structured weights, is a structural result for measure preserving systems naturally associated with bounded multiplicative functions that was recently obtained in joint work with B. Host.

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arXiv2020

Correlations of multiplicative functions along deterministic and independent sequences

We study correlations of multiplicative functions taken along deterministic sequences and sequences that satisfy certain linear independence assumptions. The results obtained extend recent results of Tao and Teräväinen and results of the author. Our approach is to use tools from ergodic theory in order to effectively exploit feedback from analytic number theory. The results on deterministic sequences crucially use structural properties of measure preserving systems associated with bounded multiplicative functions that were recently obtained by the author and Host. The results on independent sequences depend on multiple ergodic theorems obtained using the theory of characteristic factors and qualitative equidistribution results on nilmanifolds.

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arXiv2019

Ergodic Theory: Recurrence

We survey the impact of the Poincaré recurrence principle in ergodic theory, especially as pertains to the field of ergodic Ramsey theory.

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