Sets of inhomogeneous linear forms can be not isotropically winning (Q2420481)

Let \(\theta = (\theta_1, \theta_2)\). The paper under review is concerned with the set \[ \mathrm{Bad}_{\theta} = \big\{(\eta_1, \eta_2) \in {\mathbb R}^2 : \inf_{x \in {\mathbb N}} x^{1/2} \max_{i = 1,2} \Vert x \theta_i - \eta_i \Vert > 0\big\}, \] where \(\Vert \cdot \Vert\) denotes the distance to the nearest integer. The study of these sets have a long history. Pertinent too the paper under review are the results of \textit{M. Einsiedler} and \textit{J. Tseng} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 660, 83--97 (2011; Zbl 1244.11071)] and \textit{N. G. Moshchevitin} [Mosc. Math. J. 11, No. 1, 129--137 (2011; Zbl 1226.11071)], which state that these sets are all winning for the Schmidt game. In the former of these papers, it was shown that the sets are \(1/8\)-winning, while the latter improved this to \(1/2\)-winning. In the present paper, it is shown that the sets need not enjoy the stronger property of being isotropically winning. A set \(E \in {\mathbb R}^n\) is said to be isotropically winning if for any \(d \le n\) and any affine subspace \({\mathcal A} \subseteq {\mathbb R}^n\), the set \(E \cap {\mathcal A}\) is \(1/2\)-winning, when the Schmidt game is played in \({\mathcal A}\). In the present paper, an explicit pair \(\theta = (\theta_1, \theta_2)\) is constructed with \(1, \theta_1, \theta_2\) linearly independent over \({\mathbb Q}\), together with a one-dimensional affine subspace \({\mathcal P} \subseteq {\mathbb R}^2\), such that \({\mathcal P} \cap \mathrm{Bad}_\theta\) is not winning for any \(\alpha > 0\). In particular, \(\mathrm{Bad}_\theta\) is not isotropically winning.