In 1958, Szüsz proved an inhomogeneous version of Khintchine's theorem on Diophantine approximation. Szüsz's theorem states that for any non-increasing approximation function $ψ:\mathbb{N}\to (0,1/2)$ with $\sum_q ψ(q)=\infty$ and any number $γ,$ the following set
\[
W(ψ,γ)=\{x\in [0,1]: |qx-p-γ|< ψ(q) \text{ for infinitely many } q,p\in\mathbb{N}\}
\]
has full Lebesgue measure. Since then, there are very few results in relaxing the monotonicity condition. In this paper, we show that if $γ$ is can not be approximate by rational numbers too well, then the monotonicity condition can be replaced by the upper bound condition $ψ(q)=O((q(\log\log q)^2)^{-1}).$ In particular, this covers the case when $γ$ is not Liouville, for example $π,e,\ln 2, \sqrt{2}.$ In general, if $γ$ is irrational, $ψ(q)=O(q^{-1}(\log\log q)^{-2})$ and in addition,
\[
\left(\liminf_{Q\to\infty} \sum_{q=Q}^{Q^{(\log Q)^{1/8} }}ψ(q)\right)=\infty,
\]
then $W(ψ,γ)$ has full Lebesgue measure. Our proof is based on a quantitative study of the discrepancy for irrational rotations.
In Diophantine approximation, Vaaler's theorem was an important partial result towards the Duffin--Schaeffer conjecture, which was open for almost eighty years before it was recently proven by Koukoulopoulos and Maynard. A version of this result was previously proven to also hold in imaginary quadratic fields: in this paper, we establish a version of Vaaler's theorem in general number fields.
Let $α$ and $β$ be irrational real numbers and $0<\F<1/30$. We prove a precise estimate for the number of positive integers $q\leq Q$ that satisfy $\|qα\|\cdot\|qβ\|<\F$. If we choose $\F$ as a function of $Q$ we get asymptotics as $Q$ gets large, provided $\F Q$ grows quickly enough in terms of the (multiplicative) Diophantine type of $(α,β)$, e.g., if $(α,β)$ is a counterexample to Littlewood's conjecture then we only need that $\F Q$ tends to infinity. Our result yields a new upper bound on sums of reciprocals of products of fractional parts, and sheds some light on a recent question of Lê …
In this paper we consider the probabilistic theory of Diophantine approximation in projective space over a completion of Q. Using the projective metric studied by Bombieri, van der Poorten, and Vaaler we prove the analogue of Khintchine's Theorem in projective space. For finite places and in higher dimension, we are able to completely remove the condition of monotonicity and establish the analogue of the Duffin-Schaeffer conjecture.
Padé approximations and Siegel's lemma are widely used tools in Diophantine approximation theory. This work has evolved from the attempts to improve Baker-type linear independence measures, either by using the Bombieri-Vaaler version of Siegel's lemma to sharpen the estimates of Padé-type approximations, or by finding completely explicit expressions for the yet unknown 'twin type' Hermite-Padé approximations. The appropriate homogeneous matrix equation representing both methods has an $M \times (L+1)$ coefficient matrix, where $M \le L$. The homogeneous solution vectors of this matrix equation…
We study solvability of the Diophantine equation \begin{equation*} \frac{n}{2^{n}}=\sum_{i=1}^{k}\frac{a_{i}}{2^{a_{i}}}, \end{equation*} in integers $n, k, a_{1},\ldots, a_{k}$ satisfying the conditions $k\geq 2$ and $a_{i}<a_{i+1}$ for $i=1,\ldots,k-1$. The above Diophantine equation (of polynomial-exponential type) was mentioned in the monograph of Erdős and Graham, where several questions were stated. Some of these questions were already answered by Borwein and Loring. We extend their work and investigate other aspects of Erdős and Graham equation. First of all, we obtain the upper bound f…
In 1962, Gallagher proved an higher dimensional version of Khintchine's theorem on Diophantine approximation. Gallagher's theorem states that for any non-increasing approximation function $ψ:\mathbb{N}\to (0,1/2)$ with $\sum_{q=1}^{\infty} ψ(q)\log q=\infty$ and $γ=γ'=0$ the following set \[ \{(x,y)\in [0,1]^2: \|qx-γ\|\|qy-γ'\|<ψ(q) \text{ infinitely often}\} \] has full Lebesgue measure. Recently, Chow and Technau proved a fully inhomogeneous version (without restrictions on $γ,γ'$) of the above result. In this paper, we prove an Erdős-Vaaler type result for fibred multiplicative Diophantine…
In this paper we consider Diophantine equations of the form $f(x)=g(y)$ where $f$ has simple rational roots and $g$ has rational coefficients. We give strict conditions for the cases where the equation has infinitely many solutions in rationals with a bounded denominator. We give examples illustrating that the given conditions are necessary. It turns out that such equations with infinitely many solutions are strongly related to Prouhet-Tarry-Escott tuples. In the special, but important case when $g$ has only simple rational roots as well, we can give a simpler statement. Also we provide an app…
Let ${n_k}$ be an increasing lacunary sequence, i.e., $n_{k+1}/n_k>1+r$ for some $r>0$. In 1987, P. Erdos asked for the chromatic number of a graph $G$ on the integers, where two integers $a,b$ are connected by an edge iff their difference $|a-b|$ is in the sequence ${n_k}$. Y. Katznelson found a connection to a Diophantine approximation problem (also due to Erdos): the existence of $x$ in $(0,1)$ such that all the multiples $n_j x$ are at least distance $δ(x)>0$ from the set of integers. Katznelson bounded the chromatic number of $G$ by $Cr^{-2}|\log r|$. We apply the Lovász local lemma to es…
We propose a conjecture, similar to Skolem's conjecture, on a Hasse-type principle for exponential diophantine equations. We prove that in a sense the principle is valid for "almost all" equations. Based upon this we propose a general method for the solution of exponential diophantine equations. Using a generalization of a result of Erdős, Pomerance and Schmutz concerning Carmichael's $λ$ function, we can make our search systematic for certain moduli needed in the method.
The aim of this note is to show that given a positive integer $n \geq 5$, the positive integral solutions of the diophantine equation $4/n = 1/x + 1/y+1/z$ cannot have solution such that $x$ and $y$ are coprime with $xy < \sqrt{z/2}$. The proof uses the continued fraction expansion of $4/n$.
The Erdös-Moser conjecture states that the Diophantine equation $S_k(m) = m^k$, where $S_k(m)=1^k+2^k+...+(m-1)^k$, has no solution for positive integers $k$ and $m$ with $k \geq 2$. We show that stronger conjectures about consecutive values of the function $S_k$, that seem to be more naturally, imply the Erdös-Moser conjecture.
In this paper we will explore the solutions to the diophantine equation in the Erdős-Straus conjecture. For a prime $p$ we are discussing the relationship between the values $x,y,z \in \mathbb{N}$ so that $$ \frac{4}{p} = \frac{1}{x} + \frac{1}{y} + \frac{1}{z}.$$ We will separate the types of solutions into two cases. In particular we will argue that the most common relationship found is $$ x = \lfloor \frac{py}{4y-p} \rfloor + 1.$$ Finally, we will make a few conjectures to motivate further research in this area.
For any positive integer $n$, let $f(n)$ denote the number of solutions to the Diophantine equation $\frac{4}{n} = \frac{1}{x} + \frac{1}{y} + \frac{1}{z}$ with $x,y,z$ positive integers. The \emph{Erdős-Straus conjecture} asserts that $f(n) > 0$ for every $n \geq 2$. To solve this conjecture, it suffices without loss of generality to consider the case when $n$ is a prime $p$. In this paper we consider the question of bounding the sum $\sum_{p<N} f(p)$ asymptotically as $N \to \infty$, where $p$ ranges over primes. Our main result establishes the asymptotic upper and lower bounds $$ N \log^2 N…
We give a precise estimate for the number of lattice points in certain bounded subsets of $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ that involve `hyperbolic spikes' and occur naturally in multiplicative Diophantine approximation. We use Wilkie's o-minimal structure $\mathbb{R}_{\exp}$ and expansions thereof to formulate our counting result in a general setting. We give two different applications of our counting result. The first one establishes nearly sharp upper bounds for sums of reciprocals of fractional parts, and thereby sheds light on a question raised by Lê and Vaaler, extending previous work of Widmer and of t…
A nontrivial solution of the equation A!B! = C! is a triple of positive integers (A, B, C) with A $\le$ B $\le$ C -- 2. It is conjectured that the only nontrivial solution is (6, 7, 10), and this conjecture has been checked up to C = 10 6. Several estimates on the relative size of the parameters are known, such as the one given by Erd{ö}s C -- B $\le$ 5 log log C, or the one given by Bhat and Ramachandra C --B $\le$ (1/ log 2+o(1)) log log C. We check the conjecture for B $\le$ 10 3000 and give better explicit bounds such as C -- B $\le$ log log(B+1) log 2 -- 0.8803.
Erdős considered the second moment of the gap-counting function of prime divisors in 1946 and proved an upper bound that is not of the right order of magnitude. We prove asymptotics for all moments. Furthermore, we prove a generalisation stating that the gaps between primes $p$ for which there is no $\mathbb{Q}_p$-point on a random variety are Poisson distributed.
We show that for each n-tuple of positive rational integers (a_1,..,a_n) there are sets of primes S of arbitrarily large cardinality s such that the solutions of the equation a_1x_1+...+a_nx_n=1 with the x_i all S-units are not contained in fewer than exp((4+o(1))s^{1/2}(log s)^{-1/2}) proper linear subspaces of C^n. This generalizes a result of Erdos, Stewart and Tijdeman for m=2 [Compositio 36 (1988), 37-56]. Furthermore we prove that for any algebraic number field K of degree n, any integer m with 1<=m<n, and any sufficiently large s there are integers b_0,...,b_m in a number field which ar…
Let $n$ be a non-negative integer and put $p_{n}(x)=\prod_{i=0}^{n}(x+i)$. In the first part of the paper, for given $n$, we study the existence of integer solutions of the Diophantine equation $$ y^m=p_{n}(x)+\sum_{i=1}^{k}p_{a_{i}}(x), $$ where $m\in\N_{\geq 2}$ and $a_{1}<a_{2}<\ldots <a_{k}<n$. This equation can be considered as a generalization of the Erdős-Selfridge Diophantine equation $y^m=p_{n}(x)$. We present some general finiteness results concerning the integer solutions of the above equation. In particular, if $n\geq 2$ with $a_{1}\geq 2$, then our equation has only finitely many …
We generalise M. M. Skriganov's notion of weak admissibility for lattices to include standard lattices occurring in Diophantine approximation and algebraic number theory, and we prove estimates for the number of lattice points in sets such as aligned boxes. Our result improves on Skriganov's celebrated counting result if the box is sufficiently distorted, the lattice is not admissible, and, e.g., symplectic or orthogonal. We establish a criterion under which our error term is sharp, and we provide examples in dimensions $2$ and $3$ using continued fractions. We also establish a similar countin…
In this article, we continue with our investigation of the Diophantine equation $\frac{a}n=\frac1x+\frac1y$ and in particular its number of solutions $R(n;a)$ for fixed $a$. We prove a couple of mean value theorems for the second moment $(R(n;a))^2$ and from which we deduce $\log R(n;a)$ satisfies a certain Gaussian distribution with mean $\log 3\log\log n$ and variance $(log 3)^2\log\log n$, which is an analog of the classical theorem of Erd\H os and Kac. And finally these results in all suggest that the behavior of $R(n;a)$ resembles the divisor function $d(n^2)$ in various aspects.
In 1966 Harry Kesten settled the Erd\H os-Szüsz conjecture on the local discrepancy of irrational rotations. His proof made heavy use of continued fractions and Diophantine analysis. In this paper we give a purely topological proof Kesten's theorem (and Oren's generalization of it) using the pattern equivariant cohomology of aperiodic tiling spaces.
Let $(a_k)_{k\in\mathbb N}$ be a sequence of integers satisfying the Hadamard gap condition $a_{k+1}/a_k>q>1$ for all $k\in\mathbb N$, and let $$ S_n(ω) = \sum_{k=1}^n\cos(2πa_k ω),\qquad n\in\mathbb N,\;ω\in [0,1]. $$ The lacunary trigonometric sum $S_n$ is known to exhibit several properties typical for sums of independent random variables. In this paper we initiate the investigation of large deviation principles (LDPs) for $S_n$. Under the large gap condition $a_{k+1}/a_k\to\infty$, we prove that $(S_n/n)_{n\in\mathbb N}$ satisfies an LDP with speed $n$ and the same rate function $\tilde{I}…
