Pair correlations and equidistribution

Abstract

A deterministic sequence of real numbers in the unit interval is called \emph{equidistributed} if its empirical distribution converges to the uniform distribution. Furthermore, the limit distribution of the pair correlation statistics of a sequence is called Poissonian if the number of pairs $x_k,x_l \in (x_n)_{1 \leq n \leq N}$ which are within distance $s/N$ of each other is asymptotically $\sim 2sN$. A randomly generated sequence has both of these properties, almost surely. There seems to be a vague sense that having Poissonian pair correlations is a "finer" property than being equidistributed. In this note we prove that this really is the case, in a precise mathematical sense: a sequence whose asymptotic distribution of pair correlations is Poissonian must necessarily be equidistributed. Furthermore, for sequences which are not equidistributed we prove that the square-integral of the asymptotic density of the sequence gives a lower bound for the asymptotic distribution of the pair correlations.