Sarnak's trace-set arithmeticity conjecture for cofinite Fuchsian groups

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Let Γ\Gamma be a cofinite Fuchsian group. Its trace set Tr(Γ)\mathrm{Tr}(\Gamma) is the set of traces of elements of Γ\Gamma, defined up to sign. A set AA of real numbers has the bounded clustering property if there is a constant KAK_A such that A∩[n,n+1]A\cap[n,n+1] has fewer than KAK_A elements for every n∈Zn\in\mathbb Z, and define

Gap⁡(A):=inf⁡{∣a−b∣:a,b∈A, a≠b}.\operatorname{Gap}(A):=\inf\{|a-b|:a,b\in A,\ a\ne b\}.

Sarnak's conjecture. If Tr(Γ)\mathrm{Tr}(\Gamma) satisfies the bounded clustering property, then Γ\Gamma is arithmetic. If Gap⁡(Tr(Γ))>0\operatorname{Gap}(\mathrm{Tr}(\Gamma))>0, then Γ\Gamma is derived from a quaternion algebra.

Luo and Sarnak proved the bounded clustering property for arithmetic Fuchsian groups; the conjectured converses relate trace-set sparsity to arithmeticity and quaternionic origin. The resolution status of these two assertions is not specified in the source.

References

Primary source

Yanlong Hao, “On trace set of hyperbolic surfaces and a conjecture of Sarnak and Schmutz”, arXiv:2410.05223 (2025).

Additional references

2 papers in this index state this conjecture (2006–2024). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:math/0609477.

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