An ultrametric lethargy result and its application to \(p\)-adic number theory (Q384135): Difference between revisions

Let \((X,\|\cdot\|)\) be an ultrametric Banach space over a non-Archimedean valued field \(\mathbb{K}\), and let \(\{0\}= A_0\subset A_1\subset\cdots\subset A_n\subset\cdots\subset X\) be an infinite chain of subsets of \(X\), where all inclusions are strict. We say that \((X,\{A_n\})\) is an ultrametric approximation scheme if: (i) There exists a map \(K:\mathbb{N}\to \mathbb{N}\) such that \(K(n)\geq n\) and \(A_n+ A_n\subseteq A_{K(n)}\); (ii) \(\lambda A_n\subset A_n\) for all \(n\in\mathbb{N}\) and all scalars \(\lambda\in\mathbb{K}\); (iii) \(\bigcup_{n\in\mathbb{N}}A_n\) is a dense subset of \(X\). In this paper, the author proves the following ultrametric lethargy result for general ultrametric approximation schemes. Theorem. Let \((X,\{A_n\})\) be an ultrametric approximation scheme. The following claims are equivalent:{\parindent= 0.7 cm \begin{itemize} \item[(a)] For every sequence of real numbers \(\{\varepsilon_n\}\searrow 0\), there exists \(x\in X\) such that \(E(x,A_n)\neq O(\varepsilon_n)\); \item[(b)] \(\inf_{n\in\mathbb{N}} E(B(x),A_n)= c> 0\), \end{itemize}} where \(E(x,A_n)= \inf_{a\in A_n}\| x-a\|\), \(B(X)= \{x\in X:\| x\|\leq 1\}\) and \(E(B(X),A_n)= \sup_{b\in B(X)} E(b,A_n)\) denote the best approximation error, unit ball in \(X\) and the deviation of \(B(X)\) from \(A_n\), respectively. As a consequence, the author proves the existence of \(p\)-adic transcendental numbers whose best approximation errors by algebraic \(p\)-adic numbers of degree \(\leq n\) decay slowly.