Multiple recurrence and nilsequences

Aiming at a simultaneous extension of Khintchine(X,X,m,T)(X,\mathcal{X},\mu,T) and a set A ? XA\in\mathcal{X} of positive measure, the set of integers n such that A T^2nA T^knA)(A)^k+1-\mu(A{\cap} T^{n}A{\cap} T^{2n}A{\cap} \ldots{\cap} T^{kn}A)>\mu(A)^{k+1}-\epsilon is syndetic. The size of this set, surprisingly enough, depends on the length (k+1) of the arithmetic progression under consideration. In an ergodic system, for k=2 and k=3, this set is syndetic, while for kòf(x)f(Tⁿx)f(T²ⁿx)? f(T^knx)  dm(x)\int{f(x)f(T^{n}x)f(T^{2n}x){\ldots} f(T^{kn}x) \,d\mu(x)} , where k and n are positive integers and f is a bounded measurable function. We also derive combinatorial consequences of these results, for example showing that for a set of integers E with upper Banach density d^*(E)>0 and for all {n ? \mathbbZ\colon d^*(E?(E+n)?(E+2n)?(E+3n)) > d^*(E)⁴-e}\big\{n\in\mathbb{Z}{\colon} d^*\big(E\cap(E+n)\cap(E+2n)\cap(E+3n)\big) > d^*(E)^4-\epsilon\big\}