Poissonian pair correlation for directions in multi-dimensional affine lattices, and escape of mass estimates for embedded horospheres

Abstract

We prove the convergence of moments of the number of directions of affine lattice vectors that fall into a small disc, under natural Diophantine conditions on the shift. Furthermore, we show that the pair correlation function is Poissonian for any irrational shift in dimension 3 and higher, including well-approximable vectors. Convergence in distribution was already proved in the work of Str\"ombergsson and the second author, and the principal step in the extension to convergence of moments is an escape of mass estimate for averages over embedded $\operatorname{SL}(d,\mathbb{R})$-horospheres in the space of affine lattices.