Higher Correlations and the Alternative Hypothesis

Abstract

The Alternative Hypothesis concerns a hypothetical and unlikely picture of how zeros of the Riemann zeta function are spaced which one would like to rule out. In the Alternative Hypothesis, the renormalized distance between nontrivial zeros is supposed to always lie at a half integer. It is known that the Alternative Hypothesis is compatible with what is known about the pair correlation function of zeta zeros. We ask whether what is currently known about higher correlation functions of the zeros is sufficient to rule out the Alternative Hypothesis and show by construction of an explicit counterexample point process that it is not. A similar result was recently independently obtained by T. Tao, using slightly different methods. We also apply the ergodic theorem to this point process to show there exists a deterministic collection of points lying in $\tfrac{1}{2}\mathbb{Z}$ which satisfy the Alternative Hypothesis spacing but mimic all statistics which are currently known about zeros of the zeta function.