Northcott numbers for the weighted Weil heights (Q6060938): Difference between revisions

The paper under review deals with Northcott numbers of subfields of $\mathbb{Q}$, and in particular proves that any positive real number can be realised as the Northcott number of some subfield of $\mathbb{Q}$. The Northcott number of a subfield $L\subset\mathbb{Q}$ is defined to be the following infimum: \[ \inf\{C>0\mid\text{ there are infinitely many elements }a\in L\text{ with }h(a)<C\} \] where $h$ denotes the absolute logarithmic Weil height. For a number field, this infimum is $\infty$, but for larger fields it can be finite. This answers a question of \textit{X. Vidaux} and \textit{C. R. Videla} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 48, No. 1, 58--62 (2016; Zbl 1347.03017)]. (The authors actually prove a somewhat more general result giving more information about the distribution of numbers of small height in the field $L$, and about more general heights than the standard one.) The authors also prove a result concerning the behaviour of algebraic numbers of bounded degree over $L$. In particular, they prove that a well known result on Northcott numbers of algebraic numbers of bounded degree over $L$ does not extend to any nontrivially weighted Weil height.