On a quantitative refinement of the Lagrange spectrum

DOI10.4064/AA102-1-5MaRDI QIDQ2781452zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Edward B. Burger, Amanda Folsom, Alexander Pekker, Rungporn Roengpitya, Julia Snyder

Publication date 20 March 2002

Published in Acta Arithmetica (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.4064/aa102-1-5

zbMATH Keywords

Lagrange spectrumMarkoff spectrum

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Markov and Lagrange spectra and generalizations (11J06) Diophantine inequalities (11J25) Continued fractions and generalizations (11J70)

Review text

In the late 19th century, Markoff considered the quality of approximation to real numbers by rationals. In particular, he showed that any irrational number \(\alpha\) admits \textit{infinitely many} rationals \(p/q\) such that \(q^2 |\alpha - p/q|\leq 1/\sqrt{5}\). He showed that the golden number required the constant \(\sqrt{5}\). Furthermore, any real equivalent to the golden number also required the same constant. The equivalence on real numbers here is that of eventually agreeing continued fraction expansions. He then found a sequence of natural numbers (the Markoff numbers), \(m_s\), and a corresponding sequence of real numbers, \(\alpha_{m_s}\), such that for any natural number \(r\) and any irrational real \(\alpha\) inequivalent to \(\alpha_{m_s}\) for \(s<r\), there are infinitely many rational numbers \(p/q\) such that \(q^2|\alpha -p/q|\leq 1/\mu_r\). NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEFor natural numbers \(r\) and \(n\), the authors determine best possible \(C_r(n)\) such that for any irrational real \(\alpha\) inequivalent to \(\alpha_{m_s}\) for \(s<r\), there are at least \(n\) rational numbers \(p/q\) such that \(q^2|\alpha -p/q|\leq 1/C_r(n)\). NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThis beautiful result is proven by careful analysis of the partial quotients of the \(\alpha_{m_r}\).

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Cited in

(13)

• Quadratic Lagrange spectrum. I
• On quadratic numbers and forms, and Markoff theory
• Continued fractions and the Markoff tree
• On the quadratic Lagrange spectrum
• Markov's theorem and 100 years of the uniqueness conjecture. A mathematical journey from irrational numbers to perfect matchings
• Quadratic Lagrange spectrum
• On the Continued Fraction Expansion of a Class of Numbers
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