New dimension bounds for \(\alpha \beta\) sets (Q2043471)

Let \( \mathbb{T}:=\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z} \) denote the unit circle. Given \( \alpha, \beta \in \mathbb{R}\backslash \mathbb{Q} \), a nonempty closed set \( E \subset \mathbb{T} \) is called an \( \alpha\beta \) \textit{set} if for all \( x\in E \) either \( x+\alpha ~\text{mod}~1 \in E\) or \( x+\beta ~ \text{mod}~1 \in E \). A sequence \( (x_n)_{n\ge 0} \) of points in \( \mathbb{T} \) is called an \( \alpha\beta \) \textit{orbit} if for all \( n\ge 0 \), either \( x_{n+1}-x_n = \alpha ~\text{mod} ~1 \) or \( x_{n+1}-x_n = \beta ~\text{mod} ~1 \). Given \( \tau \ge 2 \), we say that \( x\in \mathbb{R}\setminus \mathbb{Q} \) is \( \tau- \)well approximate if there exist infinitely many \( (p,q)\in \mathbb{Z}\times \mathbb{N} \) satisfying \begin{align*} \left|x-\dfrac{p}{q}\right|< \dfrac{1}{q^{\tau}}. \end{align*} The set of \( \tau \)-well approximable numbers is denoted by \( W(\tau)\). If \( \tau(x)=\infty \), then we say that \( x \) is a \textit{Liouville number}. If \( \tau \in [2, \infty) \cup \{\infty\} \), the set of all real numbers with exact order \( \tau \) is denoted by \( E(\tau) \). In the paper under review, the author proves the following result, which is the main result in the paper. Theorem 1. Let \( \tau_1, \tau_2 \ge 2 \) satisfy \( 2 \tau_1 < \tau_2+2 \) and suppose that \( \alpha \in E(\tau_1) \) and \( \beta \in W(\tau_2) \). Then any \( \alpha\beta \) orbit \( (x_n)_{n\ge 0} \) satisfies \begin{align*} \overline{\dim_{B}}(\{x_n\}) \ge 1-\frac{2(\tau_1-1)}{\tau_2}, \end{align*} where \( \overline{\dim_{B}}(\{x_n\}) \) is the upper box dimension of the \( \alpha\beta \) set \( \{x_n\}\). Furthermore, as an immediate corollary to Theorem 1, the author proves show that if \( \alpha \) is not a Liouville number and \( \beta \) is a Liouville number, then \( \overline{\dim_{B}}(\{x_n\}) = 1 \). The proof of Theorem 1 follow from a clever combination of techniques in number theory, the dimension theory, and the theory of continued fractions.