Additive Energy and Irregularities of Distribution

Abstract We consider strictly increasing sequences (an)n≥1 of integers and sequences of fractional parts ({anα})n≥1 where α ∈ R. We show that a small additive energy of (an)n≥1 implies that for almost all α the sequence ({anα})n≥1 has large discrepancy. We prove a general result, provide various examples, and show that the converse assertion is not necessarily true.