Diophantine approximation with prime restriction in real quadratic number fields (Q2231147)

If $x_0\in \mathbb R$ is an irrational number, then it is a well known fact that there exist infinitely many pairs of coprime integers $(p,q)$ such that $$\left|x_0-\frac pq\right|\leq q^{-2}$$ holds. However, considering only pairs $(p,\pi)$ with $\pi$ a prime number, the problem is much more difficult. A famous result due to \textit{K. Matomäki} [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 147, No. 2, 267--283 (2009; Zbl 1196.11101)] states that there are infinitely many pairs $(p,\pi)$ with $\pi$ a prime such that $$\left|x_0-\frac p\pi\right|\leq \pi^{-1/3+\varepsilon}$$ holds for any $\varepsilon>0$. In the paper under review the authors consider instead of rational approximations, real quadratic approximations. In particular, they consider for $d>0$, with $d\equiv 3 \mod 4$ the ring of algebraic integers $\mathbb Z[\sqrt d]$ and denote by $\sigma_1,\sigma_2$ the two embeddings of $\mathbb Q(\sqrt{d})$ into $\mathbb R$. They also denote by $N(\alpha)$ the ideal norm of the principal ideal $(\alpha)$. Furthermore the authors assume that $\mathbb Q(\sqrt d)$ has class number $1$. Under these assumptions, the authors call a pair $(x_1,x_2)\in \mathbb R^2$ such that $x_1,x_2\not\in \mathbb Q(\sqrt d)$ an $\eta$-good pair, if there exists an infinite sequence of natural numbers $W$ such that the following inequality holds $$\left|x_i-\frac{\sigma_i(u+v\sqrt{d})}{\sigma_i(f+g\sqrt{d})}\right|<\frac{1}{N(f+g\sqrt{d})}, \text{ for }i=1,2,$$ with $N(f+g\sqrt{d})=W$, $u+v\sqrt{d}$ and $f+g\sqrt{d}$ are coprime and $\gcd(g,f)=O(W^\eta)$. The main result of the authors is that for an $\eta$-good pair $(x_1,x_2)\in \mathbb R^2$ there exist infinitely many pairs $(p,q)\in \mathbb Z[\sqrt d]$ such that $(q)$ is a prime ideal and such that $$\left|x_i-\frac{\sigma_i(p)}{\sigma_i(q)}\right|<N(q)^{-1/2-\nu+\varepsilon}$$ holds for any $\varepsilon>0$, where $\nu=\frac{1/8-\eta}{1+2\eta}$.