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Discrepancy in modular arithmetic progressions

Part of: Sequences and sets Elementary number theory Probabilistic theory: distribution modulo $1$; metric theory of algorithms Extremal combinatorics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2022

Jacob Fox ,
Max Wenqiang Xu  and
Yunkun Zhou
Jacob Fox
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA jacobfox@stanford.edu
Max Wenqiang Xu
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA maxxu@stanford.edu
Yunkun Zhou
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA yunkunzhou@stanford.edu
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Abstract

Celebrated theorems of Roth and of Matoušek and Spencer together show that the discrepancy of arithmetic progressions in the first $n$ positive integers is $\Theta (n^{1/4})$. We study the analogous problem in the $\mathbb {Z}_n$ setting. We asymptotically determine the logarithm of the discrepancy of arithmetic progressions in $\mathbb {Z}_n$ for all positive integer $n$. We further determine up to a constant factor the discrepancy of arithmetic progressions in $\mathbb {Z}_n$ for many $n$. For example, if $n=p^k$ is a prime power, then the discrepancy of arithmetic progressions in $\mathbb {Z}_n$ is $\Theta (n^{1/3+r_k/(6k)})$, where $r_k \in \{0,1,2\}$ is the remainder when $k$ is divided by $3$. This solves a problem of Hebbinghaus and Srivastav.

Keywords

discrepancycongruencearithmetic progressionpartial coloring methodFourier analysis

MSC classification

Primary: 11K38: Irregularities of distribution, discrepancy 11B25: Arithmetic progressions 11A07: Congruences; primitive roots; residue systems 11B30: Arithmetic combinatorics; higher degree uniformity 05D40: Probabilistic methods
Secondary: 05D10: Ramsey theory 11A25: Arithmetic functions; related numbers; inversion formulas 11B50: Sequences (mod $m$)
Type
Research Article
Information
Compositio Mathematica , Volume 158 , Issue 11 , November 2022 , pp. 2082 - 2108
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Copyright
© 2022 The Author(s). The publishing rights in this article are licensed to Foundation Compositio Mathematica under an exclusive licence

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Footnotes

Fox is supported by a Packard Fellowship and by NSF Awards DMS-1800053 and DMS-2154169. Xu is supported by the Cuthbert C. Hurd Graduate Fellowship in the Mathematical Sciences, Stanford. Zhou is supported by NSF GRFP Grant DGE-1656518.

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