On similarity classes of well-rounded sublattices of \(\mathbb Z^2\) (Q838459)

A lattice is called well rounded (WR) if its minimal vectors span the corresponding Euclidean space. WR lattices come up in a wide variety of different contexts including sphere packing, covering, kissing number problems, coding theory and the linear Diophantine problem of Frobenius. In particular, the classical discrete optimization problems on lattices can usually be reduced to WR lattices in every dimension. Distribution of unimodular WR lattices in \(\mathbb R^n\) has been studied by \textit{C. T. McMullen} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 18, No. 3, 711--734 (2005; Zbl 1132.11034)]. Also, the distribution of full rank WR sublattices of \(\mathbb Z^2\) has been recently studied by the author [J. Number Theory 128, No. 8, 2359--2393 (2008; Zbl 1193.11069)]. In the same paper, the zeta-function \(\zeta_{\text{WR}(\mathbb Z^2)}(s)\) of WR sublattices of \(\mathbb Z^2\) has been introduced and proved to be analytic in the half-plane \(\text{Re}(s)> 1\) with a pole of order at least two at \(s=1\). In this paper, it is established that the order of the pole is exactly two. To obtain this result the structure of the set of similarity classes of WR sublattices of \(\mathbb Z^2\) has been studied and used to provide a simple analytic description of the Dirichlet series corresponding to each such similar class. The zeta-function \(\zeta_{\text{WR}(\mathbb Z^2)} (s)\) has been decomposed over similar classes. The sphere packing density of similarity classes of WR sublattices of \(\mathbb Z^2\) as well as their distribution among all WR similarity classes in \(\mathbb R^2\) has also been discussed.