An averaged Chowla and Elliott conjecture along independent polynomials

Abstract

We generalize a result of Matom\"aki, Radziwi{\l}{\l}, and Tao, by proving an averaged version of a conjecture of Chowla and a conjecture of Elliott regarding correlations of the Liouville function, or more general bounded multiplicative functions, with shifts given by independent polynomials in several variables. A new feature is that we recast the problem in ergodic terms and use a multiple ergodic theorem to prove it; its hypothesis is verified using recent results by Matom\"aki and Radziwi{\l}{\l} on mean values of multiplicative functions on typical short intervals. We deduce several consequences about patterns that can be found on the range of various arithmetic sequences along shifts of independent polynomials.