Generalization of a density theorem of Khinchin and Diophantine approximation (Q6072959): Difference between revisions

A classical result of Khinchin implies that any half-infinite geodesic is superdense on the unit torus \([0,1]^2\) if and only if the slope of the geodesic is a badly approximable number. The authors extend this result to so-called finite polysquare translation surfaces. A polysquare region is a connected polygon on the plane which is built from unit squares such that two unit squares are either disjoint, intersect at a common point or have a common edge. Furthermore, any two squares are joined by a chain of squares in which neighboring squares share an edge. A finite polysquare translation surface is a polysquare region in which horizontal and vertical boundary edges are pairwise identified. The main result of the paper (Theorem 1.1) shows that a half-infinite geodesic that does not hit a vertex of a given arbitrary, finite polysquare translation surface is superdense on this surface if and only if the slope of the geodesic is a badly approximable number. Importantly, this result can be shown using only traditional methods from number theory such as continued fractions and the Three-Distance Theorem.