On rational approximations with denominators from thin sets (Q1969660)

A thin set is an infinite set \({\mathcal A}\) of positive integers \(a\) such that \(\sum_{a\leq x}a =o(x)\). The author proves the following theorem: Given a thin set \({\mathcal A}\), there exists a Liouville number \(\alpha\) and a monotonically increasing function \(f:{\mathcal A}\to] 0,+\infty[\) such that \(|v\alpha- u|> {f(v)\over v}\) for every \((u,v)\in{\mathcal A}\). This result provides a nontrivial lower bound for the nearest integer to \(\alpha p\), where \(\alpha\) is an irrational number and \(p\) is any prime number, and is connected to the upper bounds given by Vinogradov, Vaughan, Harman and Jia [\textit{Ch. H. Jia}, J. Number Theory 45, 241-253 (1993; Zbl 0786.11042)]. The proof of the theorem uses continued fractions and previous results of the author [Math. Nachr. 189, 243-256 (1998; Zbl 0896.11027)].