The discrete second moment of the Riemann zeta-function along powers of Gram points

Abstract

Let $t_k$ be the Gram points, and let $d\geq1$ be a fixed integer. Put $η_d=1/(2^{d+1}-2)$, $σ_d=1-η_d/d$, and $σ_d^*=7/8$ for $d=2$ and $σ_d^*=σ_d$ otherwise. We prove that, uniformly on compact subsets of $σ_d^*<\Re s<1$, $$ \frac1N\sum_{k=2}^{N}|ζ(s+it_k^d)|^2 \longrightarrow ζ(2\Re s). $$ The underlying result is a mean-square approximation by finite Euler products. For the squares of Gram points, grouping equal frequency ratios and applying the double large sieve improves the general derivative-test boundary $11/12$ to $7/8$. Assuming the Lindelöf hypothesis, both the Euler-product approximation and the second-moment formula hold on every compact subset of $1/2<\Re s<1$, for every fixed $d\geq1$. As an application, we obtain a discrete universality theorem along the same Gram-power shifts, in the same unconditional and conditional regions.