Abstract:
We investigate the pair correlation function of the sequence of fractional parts of αn d, n=1,2,…,N, where d≥ 2 is an integer and α an irrational. We conjecture that for badly approximable α, the normalized spacings between elements of this sequence have Poisson statistics as N?∞.
We show that for almost all α (in the sense of measure theory), the pair correlation of this sequence is Poissonian.
In the quadratic case d=2, this implies a similar result for the energy levels of the “boxed oscillator” in the high-energy limit. This is a simple integrable system in 2 degrees of freedom studied by Berry and Tabor as an example for their conjecture that the energy levels of generic completely integrable systems have Poisson spacing statistics.
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Received: 22 July 1997 / Accepted: 24 September 1997
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Rudnick, Z., Sarnak, P. The Pair Correlation Function of Fractional Parts of Polynomials . Comm Math Phys 194, 61–70 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002200050348
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002200050348