On optimal constants for best two-dimensional simultaneous Diophantine approximations (Q1807620)

Given any two real numbers \(x,y\), consider the successive minima \(\lambda_0, \lambda_1, \lambda_2, \dots\) with respect to the constraint \(|q |\leq Q\), where \(\lambda_j\) is defined to be the minimum of all \(\lambda\geq 0\) such that exist \(j+1\) independent integer vectors \((q_k,m_k,n_k)\) with ``denominators'' \(|q_k|\leq Q\) and ``remainders'' \(\|(q_kx- m_k,q_ky-n_k) \|\leq\lambda\), \(k=0,\dots,j\) (here \(\|\cdot\|\) denotes the Euclidean norm). Then the following holds: (i) \(\lambda_0\lambda_1 <c/Q\) for \(c=2/ \sqrt 3\); (ii) \(c_1\lambda_k/q_k \leq\lambda_0 \lambda_1 \lambda_2 <c_2 \lambda_k/q_k\) for \(c_1=2/ \sqrt{27}\), \(c_2=2/ \sqrt 3\), where \(\lambda_k/q_k= \min\{\lambda_0/q_0, \lambda_1/q_1, \lambda_2/q_2\}\). All constants \(c,c_1,c_2\) are best possible. Actually, the results are formulated slightly more generally in lattice language. The proof makes use of an interesting geometrical lemma in the plane.