Product characterization of weak mixing

If $T$ is weakly mixing, then $T\times S$ is ergodic exactly when $S$ is ergodic. In particular, ergodicity of $T\times T$ is equivalent to weak mixing of $T$.

For mean-zero $f$, apply the mean ergodic theorem on an ergodic product system to $f\otimes \overline{f}$, paired with $g\otimes \overline{g}$. Its correlation is $|⟨U^{n}f,g⟩{|}^2$. The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality then gives averaged absolute correlation decay, the definition of weak mixing.