On successive minima and the absolute Siegel's Lemma (Q2474300): Difference between revisions

\textit{D. Roy} and \textit{J. L. Thunder} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 476, 1--26 (1996; Zbl 0860.11036); Addendum and erratum, ibid. 508, 47--51 (1999; Zbl 0910.11028)] introduced absolute geometry of numbers, dealing with points in \(\overline{\mathbb Q}^n\), and proved an analogue of Minkowski's Theorem on successive minima in this setting. The author proves an analogue of Mahler's inequality relating the successive minima of a symmetric convex body to those of its polar body. Similarly to Roy and Thunder, the author formulated his result in terms of twisted heights. For any number field \(K\), denote by \(M_K\) its set of places. For \(w\in M_K\) choose the absolute value \(\|\cdot\|_w\) such that if \(w\) lies above \(p\in M_{\mathbb Q}=\{\infty\}\cup\{ \text{primes}\}\), then the restriction of \(\|\cdot\|_w\) to \(\mathbb Q\) is \(|\cdot |_p\); then define \(|\cdot |_w:=\|\cdot\|_w^{[K_w:\mathbb Q_p]/[K:\mathbb Q_p]}\). Extend this absolute value to \(K_w\). Then for \(\mathbf{x}=(x_1\dots x_N)\in K_w^N\), define \(\|\mathbf{x}\|_w:=\big(\sum_{i=1}^N \|x_i\|_w^2\big)^{1/2}\) if \(w\) is archimedean and \(\|\mathbf{x}\|_w:=\max_{i=1}^N |x_i|_w\) otherwise. Fix a number field \(k\) and use \(v\) to index the places of \(k\). Denote by \(k_{\mathbb A}\) the adéle ring of \(k\) and let \(A=(A_v)_{v\in M_k}\in \Aut(k_{\mathbb A}^N)\). Thus, \(A_v\in \text{GL}(N,k_v)\) for all \(v\), and \(A_v\in \text{GL} (N,O_v)\) for all but finitely many \(v\), where \(O_v\subset k_v\) is the local ring at \(v\). Then \(|A|_{\mathbb A}:=\prod_{v\in M_k}|\det A_v|_v\) is well-defined. The twisted height \(H_A:\, \overline{\mathbb Q}^N\to\mathbb R_{\geq 0}\) is defined as follows: given \(\mathbf{x}\in\overline{\mathbb Q}^N\), choose a finite extension \(K\) of \(k\) such that \(\mathbf{x}\in K^N\), for \(w\in M_K\) define \(A_w:=A_v\) where \(v\in M_k\) is the place of \(k\) below \(w\), and put \(H_A(\mathbf{x}):=\prod_{w\in M_K}\| A_w\mathbf{x}\|_w\). The \(n\)-th (absolute) successive minimum \(\mu_n(A)\) of \(A\) (\(n=1\dots N\)) is the infimum of all \(\mu >0\) such that the set of \(\mathbf{x}\in\overline{\mathbb Q}^N\) with \(H_A(\mathbf{x})\leq\mu\) contains at least \(n\) linearly independent points. The author's main result is as follows. Let \(A^*:= (A^{-1})^T:=\big(\,(A_v^{-1})^T\big)_{v\in M_k}\). Then \[ 1\leq \mu_n(A)\mu_{N+1-n}(A^*)\leq e^{(N-1)/2}\;\;\text{for } n=1\dots N. \] As a corollary, he gives an alternative proof of Roy's and Thunder's analogue of Minkowski's Theorem: \(\prod_{n=1}^N \mu_n(A)\leq e^{N(N-1)/4}|A|_{\mathbb A}\) [loc. cit.].