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Seminar

Partition regularity of Pythagorean pairs

Speaker
Joel Moreira (Warwick)
Date
Wed, Feb 7 2024, 1:00pm
Location
383N

Is there a partition of the natural numbers into finitely many pieces, none of which contains a Pythagorean triple (i.e. a solution to the equation x^2+y^2=z^2)? This is one of the simplest questions in arithmetic Ramsey theory which is still open. I will present a recent partial result, showing that in any finite partition of the natural numbers there are two numbers x,y in the same cell of the partition, such that x^2+y^2=z^2 for some integer z which may be in a different cell. The proof consists, after some initial maneuvers inspired by ergodic theory, in controlling the behavior of completely multiplicative functions along certain quadratic polynomials. Considering separately aperiodic and "pretentious" functions, the last major ingredient is a concentration estimate for functions in the latter class when evaluated along sums of two squares.The talk is based on joint work with Frantzikinakis and Klurman.