Successive minima and best simultaneous Diophantine approximations (Q2494360)

The subject of the paper under review is the problem of best approximations of a vector by rational vectors of a lattice whose common denominator is bounded. To this end, the authors introduce successive minima for a periodic lattice structure and extend some classical results from the geometry of numbers to this structure. To describe the main theorem of the paper, let \({\mathcal K}^n\) be the set of all 0-symmetric convex bodies in \({\mathbb R}^n\). For \(K \in {\mathcal K}^n\) and \(x \in {\mathbb R}^n\), let \(| x| _K = \min \left\{ \lambda \geq 0 : \, x \in \lambda K \right\}\) and \(| | x| | = | x| _{ B^n }\), where \(B^n\) denotes the \(n\)-dimensional unit ball. The inner product associated to \(| | \dots| | \) is denoted by \(x \cdot y\). Given a lattice \(\Lambda \subset {\mathbb R}^n\) of full rank, \(\alpha \in {\mathbb R}^n\), \(Q \in {\mathbb Z}_{ >0 }\), and \(K \in {\mathcal K}^n\), let \[ \Lambda (\alpha, Q) := \Lambda \cup (\alpha + \Lambda) \cup (2 \alpha + \Lambda) \cup \cdots \cup (Q\alpha + \Lambda) \, , \] where we assume that \(k \alpha \notin \Lambda\) for \(1 \leq k \leq Q\), and \[ \lambda_j = \lambda_j \left( \Lambda (\alpha, Q), K \right) := \min \left\{ \lambda \geq 0 : \, \dim \left( \Lambda (\alpha, Q) \cap \lambda K \right) \geq j \right\} . \] We further denote by \(\delta (K)\) the density of a densest packing of translates of \(K\) and by \(\Lambda^*\) the dual lattice of \(\Lambda\). Finally, let \[ \gamma := \min \left\{ \left| u^* \cdot \alpha + z \right| > 0 : \, u^* \in \Lambda^* , z \in {\mathbb Z}, | | (u^*, z)| | \leq \left( n \lambda_n + Q | | (\alpha, 1)| | \right)^n / \det \Lambda \right\} . \] The main theorem asserts that then \[ \lambda_1^n \, \text{ vol} \, K \leq \delta (K) \, 2^n {{ \det \Lambda } \over { Q+1 }} \] and \[ {{ 2^n } \over { n! }} \det \Lambda \, \gamma \leq \lambda_1 \lambda_2 \cdots \lambda_n \text{ vol} \, K \leq 2^n {{ \det \Lambda } \over { Q+1 }} \, . \]