A note on the Möbius uncertainty principle for posets

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Authors: Anurag Sahay
Cited by: 0
References: 1

Abstract

We consider two generalizations of Pollack's uncertainty principle for Möbius inversion to locally finite posets. The first generalization was previously studied by Goh. Here, we provide a simplified sufficient criterion for the uncertainty principle to hold. We also provide a necessary criterion for the same which, in particular, disproves Goh's conjectural characterization of posets for which an uncertainty principle holds. Nevertheless, we prove that Goh's conjecture indeed holds when the poset forms a lattice. The second generalization is new and applies to posets with reduced incidence algebras of a certain form. Here, we make some preliminary observations, including the fact that the uncertainty principle holds for the poset of finite subsets of natural numbers and the poset of finite dimensional subspaces of $\mathbb{F}_q^\infty$. Our proofs in these settings are quite different from the proof for the poset of natural numbers under divisibility.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Advanced Combinatorial Mathematics Analytic Number Theory Research Mathematical Analysis and Transform Methods

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
1 March 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Preprint