An extremal problem related to probability

Summary We consider a walk from a stateA ₁ to a stateA _n+1 in which the probability of remaining atA _i isp _i , and the probability of progressing fromA _i toA _i+1 is 1 –p _i . The probabilityW _nk of reachingA _n+1 fromA ₁ in exactlyn + k steps can then be expressed as a polynomial of degreen + k in then variablesp ₁,,p _n . We determine the maximum value ofW _nk and the (unique) choice (p ₁,,p _n ) for which this extremum occurs.Dedicated to Professor Otto Haupt with best wishes on his 100th birthday     

The measure of non-normal sets

Summary It is well-known that almost every number in [0, 1] is normal in base 2, in the sense of Lebesgue measure. Kahane and Salem asked whether the same is true with respect to any Borel measure whose Fourier-Stieltjes coefficients vanish at infinity — in other words, whether the set of non-normal numbers is a set of uniqueness in the wide sense. We show that this is not the case. In fact, we give best-possible conditions on the rate of decay of in order that -almost every number be normal. The techniques include, on the one hand, probability measures with respect to which the binary digits in [0, 1] are independent only by blocks, rather than individually, and on the other hand, the strong law of large numbers for weakly correlated random variables.This work was partially supported by an NSF Graduate Fellowship, NSF Grant MCS-82-01602, and an AMS Research Fellowship.     

Coherent single pion production by antineutrino charged current interactions and test of PCAC

The cross section for coherent production of a single π^? meson in charged current antineutrino interactions on neon nuclei has been measured in BEBC to be (175±25) 10^?40 cm²/neon nucleus, averaged over the energy spectrum of the antineutrino wide band beam at the CERN SPS; this corresponds to (0.9±0.1) % of the total charged current \(\bar v_\mu \) cross section. The distributions of kinematical variables are in agreement with theoretical predictions based on the PCAC hypothesis and the meson dominance model; in particular, theQ ² dependence is well described by a propagator containing a massm=(1.35±0.18) GeV. The absolute value of the cross section is also in agreement with the model. This analysis thus provides a test of the PCAC hypothesis in the antineutrino energy range 5–150 GeV.