\(p\)-adic denseness of members of partitions of \(\mathbb{N}\) and their ratio sets (Q2305610)

Let \(p\) be a prime, \({\mathbb Q}_p\) be the field of the \(p\)-adic numbers and \(A\) be a subset of \({\mathbb Q_p}\). Let \(R(A)=\{a/b: a,b\in {\mathbb Q}_p,~b\ne 0\}\) be the ratio set of \(A\). Recently there is some activity aimed of determining whether \(R(A)\) is dense in \({\mathbb Q}_p\) for various interesting sets \(A\), usually of integers from \({\mathbb Z}\). The paper under review takes a different point of view and asks whether there is a partition of \({\mathbb N}\) into two sets \(A\) and \(B\) such that \(R(A)\) and \(R(B)\) are dense in no \({\mathbb Q}_p\). They show that the answer is negative. In fact, they show that if \(A_1,\ldots,A_k\) is a partition of \({\mathbb N}\) into \(k\) sets then with at most \(\lfloor \log_2 k\rfloor\) exceptions in the prime \(p\), one of \(R(A_1),\ldots,R(A_k)\) is dense in \({\mathbb Q}_p\). Here, \(\log_2\) is the base \(2\)--logarithm. They also prove that \(\lfloor \log_2 k\rfloor\) is optimal for the above statement in the sense that if \(\ell:=\lfloor \log_2 k\rfloor\) and \(p_\ell>p_{\ell-1}>\ldots>p_1\) are distinct primes then there is a partition of \({\mathbb N}\) in \(k\) sets \(A_1,A_2,\ldots,A_k\) such that none of \(R(A_1),\ldots,R(A_k)\) is dense in any of the \({\mathbb Q}_{p_i}\) for \(i=1,\ldots,\ell\).