Approximation to real numbers by cubic algebraic integers I

Building on work of Davenport and Schmidt, we mainly prove two results. The first one is a version of Gel'fond's transcendence criterion which provides a sufficient condition for a complex or $p$-adic number $\xi$ to be algebraic in terms of the existence of polynomials of bounded degree taking small values at $\xi$ together with most of their derivatives. The second one, which follows from this criterion by an argument of duality, is a result of simultaneous approximation by...

We investigate a variant of Wirsing's problem on approximation to a real number by real algebraic numbers of degree exactly $n$. This has been studied by Bugeaud and Teulie. We improve their bounds for degrees up to $n=7$. Moreover, we obtain results regarding small values of polynomials and approximation to a real number by algebraic integers in small prescribed degree. The main ingredient are irreducibility criteria for integral linear combinations of coprime integer polyno...

Let xi be a real number which is neither rational nor quadratic over Q. Based on work of Davenport and Schmidt, Bugeaud and Laurent have shown that, for any real number theta, there exist a constant c>0 and infinitely many non-zero polynomials P in Z[T] of degree at most 2 such that |theta-P(xi)| < c |P|^{-gamma} where gamma=(1+sqrt{5})/2 denotes for the golden ratio and where the norm |P| of P stands for the largest absolute value of its coefficients. In the present paper, w...

We investigate how well complex algebraic numbers can be approximated by algebraic numbers of degree at most n. We also investigate how well complex algebraic numbers can be approximated by algebraic integers of degree at most n+1. It follows from our investigations that for every positive integer n there are complex algebraic numbers of degree larger than n that are better approximable by algebraic numbers of degree at most n than almost all complex numbers. As it turns out,...

For $K$ a cubic field with only one real embedding and $\alpha,\beta\in K$, we show how to construct an increasing sequence $\{m_n\}$ of positive integers and a subsequence $\{\psi_n\}$ such that (for some constructible constants $C_1,C_2>0$) $\max\{\|m_n\alpha\|,\|m_n\beta\|\}<\frac{C_1}{m_n^{1/2}}$ and $\|\psi_n\alpha\|<\frac{C_2}{\psi_n^{1/2}\log \psi_n}$ for all $n$. As a consequence, we have $\psi_n\|\psi_n\alpha\|\|\psi_n\beta\|<\frac{C_1 C_2}{\log \psi_n}$, thus giving...

In this note we formulate some questions in the study of approximations of reals by rationals of the form a/b^2 arising in theory of Shr"odinger equations. We hope to attract attention of specialists to this natural subject of number theory.

Let $d$ be a positive integer. Let $p$ be a prime number. Let $\alpha$ be a real algebraic number of degree $d+1$. We establish that there exist a positive constant $c$ and infinitely many algebraic numbers $\xi$ of degree $d$ such that $|\alpha - \xi| \cdot \min\{|\Norm(\xi)|_p,1\} < c H(\xi)^{-d-1} (\log 3 H(\xi))^{-1/d}$. Here, $H(\xi)$ and $\Norm(\xi)$ denote the na{\"\i}ve height of $\xi$ and its norm, respectively. This extends an earlier result of de Mathan and Teuli\'...

This work is motivated by a paper of Davenport and Schmidt, which treats the question of when Dirichlet's theorems on the rational approximation of one or of two irrationals can be improved and if so, by how much. We consider a generalization of this question in the simplest case of a single irrational but in the context of the geometry of numbers in $\mathbb R^2$, with the sup-norm replaced by a more general one. Results include sharp bounds for how much improvement is possi...

In this paper we give a conjectural refinement of the Davenport-Heilbronn theorem on the density of cubic field discriminants. We explain how this refinement is plausible theoretically and agrees very well with computational data.

Let $\alpha$ and $\beta$ be real numbers such that $1$, $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are linearly independent over $\mathbb{Q}$. A classical result of Dirichlet asserts that there are infinitely many triples of integers $(x_0,x_1,x_2)$ such that $|x_0+\alpha x_1+\beta x_2| < \max\{|x_1|,|x_2|\}^{-2}$. In 1976, W. M. Schmidt asked what can be said under the restriction that $x_1$ and $x_2$ be positive. Upon denoting by $\gamma\cong 1.618$ the golden ratio, he proved that there are tri...