On a family of quartic Thue inequalities. I (Q1366669)

Let \(a \geq 8\) be an integer and \(k(a) \geq 1.\) The main results of the present paper are as follows: If \((x,y) \in {\mathbb{Z}} \times {\mathbb{Z}}\) is a solution of the Thue inequality \((*)\) \(|x^4 - a^2x^2y^2 + y^4|\leq k(a)\) with \(x \geq y > 0,\) then \[ y^{4-\lambda (a)}< \frac{c}{1.99} a k(a),\qquad\text{where}\qquad \lambda (a) = 2+ \frac{2 \log ( 6 \sqrt{3} a^2 +24 )}{\log (27(a^4-4)/118)} \] and \(c \leq 2120.\) An important consequence of the main result is that if \(k(a)=a^2-2\) and \((x,y)\) as above is a solution of (*), then \((x,y)=(0,0)\) or \(|x|\) or \(|y|\) is 1. The proof involves \textit{J. H. Rickert}'s result [ Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 113, 461-472 (1993; Zbl 0786.11040)] on simultaneous rational approximation of algebraic numbers of the form \(\sqrt{1+1/N}\) and \(\sqrt{1-1/N}\). Similar results were obtained recently by \textit{M. Mignotte, A. Pethő} and \textit{F. Lemmermeyer} [Acta Arith. 76, 245-269 (1996; Zbl 0862.11028)] for a family of cubic forms by using lower estimates for linear forms in logarithms of algebraic numbers and by \textit{G. Lettl, A. Pethő} and \textit{P. Voutier} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. (to appear)] for families of cubic, quartic and sextic forms.