Max Wenqiang Xu (徐文强)





Interests:

Some of my research work is featured in this article on the popular science magazine Scientific American (also on Yahoo news) talks about the historical and recent interactions between Number Theory and Probability Theory / Mathematical Physics. See also this article on IFLScience, which is more focused on understanding prime numbers.

Papers: [arXiv] [Google Scholar]

  1. Nonnegative quadratic character sums (With Rodrigo Angelo and K. Soundararajan)
    [Annoucement at ICM 2022 by Soundararajan, video]
    [Talk at Number Theory Webinar by myself, video]
    In preparation

  2. Distribution of random multiplicative functions in short intervals (With Adam J. Harper and K. Soundararajan)
    In preparation

  3. Crossing probabilities and random multiplicative functions (With R. Angelo, M. Aymone, J. Campos-Vargas, O. Klurman)
    Submitted

  4. Helson's conjecture for smooth numbers (With Seth Hardy)
    Submitted

  5. A random polynomial with multiplicative coefficients is almost surely irreducible (With Péter P. Varjú)
    Submitted

  6. Average sizes of mixed character sums (With Victor Y. Wang)
    Submitted

  7. Harper's beyond square-root conjecture (With Victor Y. Wang)
    International Mathematics Research Notices 18 (2025), rnaf279

  8. Better than square-root cancellation for random multiplicative functions
    Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. Series B 11 (2024), 482–507

  9. Extreme values of Dirichlet polynomials with multiplicative coefficients (with Daodao Yang)
    Journal of Number Theory 258 (2024), 173-180

  10. Central limit theorems for random multiplicative functions (with Kannan Soundararajan) [Video, Sound] [Video, myself]
    Journal d'Analyse Mathématique, 2023 (special volume to celebrate Peter Sarnak's 70th birthday)

  11. Paucity phenomena for polynomial products (with Victor Y. Wang)
    Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 2024

  12. Partial sums of typical multiplicative functions over short moving intervals (with Mayank Pandey and Victor Y. Wang)
    Algebra & Number Theory, 18(2):389–408, 2024

  13. On a Turán conjecture and random multiplicative functions (with Rodrigo Angelo) [Video]
    Quarterly journal of mathematics, 74 (2023), 767-777

  14. On the random Chowla conjecture (with Oleksiy Klurman and Ilya D. Shkredov)
    Geometric and Functional Analysis, 33 (2023), 749–777.

  15. Universality of low degree factors of random polynomials over finite fields (with Jimmy He and Huy Tuan Pham)
    International Mathematics Research Notices, 2023 (17), 14752-14794

  16. On product sets of arithmetic progressions (with Yunkun Zhou) [Video]
    Discrete Analysis 2023:10, 31 pp.

  17. Discrepancy of arithmetic progressions in grids (with Jacob Fox and Yunkun Zhou)
    Mathematika, 70 (2024), no. 1, Paper No. e12237, 31 pp.

  18. Discrepancy in modular arithmetic progressions (with Jacob Fox and Yunkun Zhou) [Video]
    Compositio Mathematica 158 (2022), 2082-2108.

  19. Multicolor list Ramsey numbers grow exponentially (with Jacob Fox, Xiaoyu He, and Sammy Luo)
    Journal of Graph Theory, 101 (2022), 389–396.

  20. Mixing time of fractional random walk on finite fields (with Jimmy He and Huy Tuan Pham) [Video, talk by Jimmy He]
    Electronic Journal of Probability, 27 (2022), 1-15

  21. A note on the Erdős distinct subset sums problem (with Quentin Dubroff and Jacob Fox)
    SIAM Journal on Discrete Math. 35 (2021), 322-324.

  22. A polynomial with a root mod p for all p has a real root (with Rodrigo Angelo)
    The American Mathematical Monthly, accepted.

  23. Irreducibility of random polynomials of bounded degree (with Huy Tuan Pham) [Editorial introduction]
    Discrete Analysis 2021:7, 16 pp.

  24. A robust version of Freiman's 3k-4 Theorem and applications (with Fernando Xuancheng Shao)
    Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 166 (2019), 567-581.

  25. Popular differences and generalized Sidon Sets
    Journal of Number Theory 186 (2018), 103-120

Expositions

Co-Authors:

Rodrigo Angelo, Quentin Dubroff, Jacob Fox, Seth Hardy, Jimmy He, Xiaoyu He, Oleksiy Klurman, Sammy Luo, Mayank Pandey, Huy Tuan Pham, Fernando Xuancheng Shao, Ilya D. Shkredov, Kannan Soundararajan, Péter Varjú, Victor Y. Wang, Daodao Yang, Yunkun Zhou