Geometric sieve over number fields for higher moments

Abstract

The geometric sieve for densities is a very convenient tool proposed by Poonen and Stoll (and independently by Ekedahl) to compute the density of a given subset of the integers. In this paper we provide an effective criterion to find all higher moments of the density (e.g. the mean, the variance) of a subset of a finite dimensional free module over the ring of algebraic integers of a number field. More precisely, we provide a geometric sieve that allows the computation of all higher moments corresponding to the density, over a general number field K. This work advances the understanding of geometric sieve for density computations in two ways: on one hand, it extends a result of Bright, Browning and Loughran, where they provide the geometric sieve for densities over number fields; on the other hand, it extends the recent result on a geometric sieve for expected values over the integers to both the ring of algebraic integers and to moments higher than the expected value. To show how effective and applicable our method is, we compute the density, mean and variance of Eisenstein polynomials and shifted Eisenstein polynomials over number fields. This extends (and fully covers) results in the literature that were obtained with ad-hoc methods.