Diophantine approximations and Sturmian numbers

Sturmian sequences form an important class of binary sequences in combinatorics on words. Among others, a possible definition is as follows: a binary sequence \((u_n)_{n\geq 0}\) on the alphabet \(\{0,1\}\) is called Sturmian if there exist \(\beta\in[0,1)\) and an irrational number \(\alpha\) such that \(u_n=[(n+1)\alpha+\beta]-[n\alpha+\beta]\). Call \(\alpha\) the ratio of the sequence. A real number \(x=\sum\varepsilon_j/2^j\) is called a binary Sturmian number (with ratio \(\alpha\)) if \((\varepsilon_j)_{j\geq 0}\) is a Sturmian sequence (with ratio \(\alpha\)). Let \(\sigma: t\mapsto2t\bmod 1\), \(x=\sum\varepsilon_j/2^j\) and \(O^+(x)=\{\sigma^n(x)\colon n\geq0\}\). Set \(K=K(x)=\overline{O^+(x)}\). If \(x=\sum\varepsilon_j/2^j\) is a binary Sturmian number with ratio \(\alpha\), then \(K\) is exactly the set of all the binary Sturmian numbers with the same ratio. The principal result of the paper under review deals with the Diophantine properties of binary Sturmian numbers. Let \(z\) be any binary Sturmian number with ratio \(\alpha\). Then, it is for instance proved that \(z\) is a Liouville number if \(\alpha\) has unbounded partial quotients in its continued fraction expansion. Moreover, if \(\alpha\) has partial quotients bounded by \(k (\geq 2)\) with infinitely many of them equal to \(k\), then \(z\) is not \(k+1\) Diophantine. (Here, \(x\) is said to be \(k+1\) Diophantine if there is a constant \(c>0\) such that \(| x-p/q| \geq c/q^{k+1}\) for all rationals \(p/q\).)

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