Refinement of Vahlen's theorem for Minkowski bases of three-dimensional lattices (Q2473649)

A lattice in a Euclidean space is said to be in general position if it does not contain any nonzero points lying in the coordinate hyperplanes. A basis \(\{\gamma, \gamma', \gamma''\}\) for a lattice \(\Gamma\) in general position in \(\mathbb R^3\) is called a Minkowski basis if for any \(\eta \in \Gamma \setminus \{\mathbf 0\}\), \[ \eta_i \geq \max \{ | \gamma_i| , | \gamma'_i| , | \gamma''_i| \},\quad i=1,2,3. \] In fact, the concept of a Minkowski basis can be extended to any lattice in \(\mathbb R^3\) via a certain matrix equivalence under the action of a subgroup of \(\text{GL}_3(\mathbb R)\) generated by changes of sign and transpositions of rows or columns. Coordinates of vectors of a Minkowski basis satisfy a variety of interesting inequalities, in particular in a previous paper of the authors [Mat. Sb. 194, No. 7, 3--14 (2003; Zbl 1080.11051)], it has been shown that \[ \min \{ | \gamma_1 \gamma_2 \gamma_3| , | \gamma'_1 \gamma'_2 \gamma'_3| , | \gamma''_1 \gamma''_2 \gamma''_3| \} \leq \tfrac{1}{3} \det (\Gamma). \] In the present paper, the authors show that if \(\{\gamma, \gamma', \gamma''\}\) is a Minkowski basis for a lattice \(\Gamma\) in \(\mathbb R^3\), then \[ | \gamma_1 \gamma_2 \gamma_3| + | \gamma'_1 \gamma'_2 \gamma'_3| + | \gamma''_1 \gamma''_2 \gamma''_3| \leq \det (\Gamma). \] Minkowski basis generalizes the concept of Voronoi basis for lattices in \(\mathbb R^2\). Similar inequalities for Voronoi bases can be stated in terms of convergents of a continued fraction expansion of an irrational number, which are known under the name of Vahlen's theorem. In this sense, the authors' results can be viewed as a generalization and a refinement of Vahlen's theorem for three-dimensional lattices.