Diophantine approximation with mild divisibility constraints (Q2493048)

Dirichlet's theorem on Diophantine approximation states that for any real \(\alpha\) and any \(N \geq 1\), there exists an integer \(n\) such that \(1 \leq n \leq N\) and \(\| n\alpha \| < N^{-1}\); here \(\| \cdot \| \) is the distance to the nearest integer function. There is a long history of estimates for \(\| n\alpha \| \) when \(n\) is subject to various arithmetic restrictions. In this paper the authors establish several theorems that deal with \(\| n\alpha \| \) when \(n\) is \textit{\(\mathcal B\)-free}. Let \({\mathcal B} = (b_k)\) be an increasing sequence of natural numbers such that \(\sum b_k^{-1} < \infty\) and \((b_k, b_m) = 1\) when \(k \neq m\). An integer \(n\) is called \(\mathcal B\)-free if it is not divisible by any element of \(\mathcal B\). Two of the main results of the paper can be stated as follows. Theorem 1. For any irrational real \(\alpha\), any real \(\beta\), any sequence \(\mathcal B\) as above, and any \(\epsilon > 0\), there are infinitely many solutions to the inequality \(\| n\alpha + \beta \| < n^{-1/3 + \epsilon}\) in \(\mathcal B\)-free integers \(n\) having exactly two prime factors. Theorem 2. For any positive integer \(r\), there exist an irrational real \(\alpha\) and a sequence \(\mathcal B\) as above, such that \(\| n\alpha \| > n^{-1}(\log n)^r\) for all sufficiently large \(\mathcal B\)-free integers \(n\).