On the distribution of points in projective space of bounded height

Abstract

In this paper we consider the uniform distribution of points in compact metric spaces. We assume that there exists a probability measure on the Borel subsets of the space which is invariant under a suitable group of isometries. In this setting we prove the analogue of Weyl’s criterion and the Erdös-Turán inequality by using orthogonal polynomials associated with the space and the measure. In particular, we discuss the special case of projective space over completions of number fields in some detail. An invariant measure in these projective spaces is introduced, and the explicit formulas for the orthogonal polynomials in this case are given. Finally, using the analogous Erdös-Turán inequality, we prove that the set of all projective points over the number field with bounded Arakelov height is uniformly distributed with respect to the invariant measure as the bound increases.