Periodic Hypersurfaces and Lee-Yang Polynomials

Abstract

We study periodic measures on $\mathbb{R}^n$ whose Fourier transform is confined to a proper double cone, in the sense of Meyer's notion of lighthouse measures. Lee--Yang polynomials provide a natural family of examples: it follows from the work of Kurasov and Sarnak that the torus zero sets of such polynomials are hypersurfaces supporting directional lighthouse measures. We prove a rigidity theorem showing that, under mild assumptions, this is essentially the only possibility. Any periodic $C^{1+\epsilon}$ hypersurface supporting a directional lighthouse measure must arise as the torus zero set of an essentially Lee--Yang polynomial. The proof is based on the recent classification of one-dimensional Fourier quasicrystals and provides a geometric interpretation of this theory.