Abstract
We exploit dynamical properties of diagonal actions to derive results in Diophantine approximations. In particular, we prove that the continued fraction expansion of almost any point on the middle third Cantor set (with respect to the natural measure) contains all finite patterns (hence is well approximable). Similarly, we show that for a variety of fractals in [0, 1]2, possessing some symmetry, almost any point is not Dirichlet improvable (hence is well approximable) and has property C (after Cassels). We then settle by similar methods a conjecture of M. Boshernitzan saying that there are no irrational numbers x in the unit interval such that the continued fraction expansions of \({\{nx\,{\rm mod}\,1\}_{n \in {\mathbb N}}}\) are uniformly eventually bounded.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
R.L. Adler, B. Weiss, Similarity of automorphisms of the torus, Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society 98, American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI (1970).
M. Aka, U. Shapira, On the continued fraction expansion of quadratic irrationals, preprint.
Brin M., Katok A.: On local entropy, Geometric Dynamics (Rio de Janeiro, 1981). Springer Lecture Notes in Math. 1007, 30–38 (1983)
Yitwah Cheung, Hausdorff dimension of the set of singular pairs, Ann of Math., to appear.
Dani S.G.: Divergent trajectories of flows on homogeneous spaces and Diophantine approximation. J. Reine Angew. Math. 359, 55–89 (1985)
Davenport H: Indefinite binary quadratic forms, and Euclid’s algorithm in real quadratic fields. Proc. London Math. Soc. (2) 53, 65–82 (1951)
Davenport H., Schmidt W.M.: Dirichlet’s theorem on Diophantine approximation II. Acta Arith. 16, 413–424 (1969/70)
H. Davenport, W.M. Schmidt, Dirichlet’s theorem on Diophantine approximation, in “Symposia Mathematica IV (INDAM, Rome, 1968/69), Academic Press, London (1970), 113–132.
Einsiedler M., Katok A.: Rigidity of measures—the high entropy case and non-commuting foliations. Israel J. Math. 148, 169–238 (2005)
Einsiedler M., Katok A., Lindenstrauss E.: Invariant measures and the set of exceptions to Littlewood’s conjecture. Ann. of Math. (2) 164(2), 513–560 (2006)
Einsiedler M., Kleinbock D.: Measure rigidity and p-adic Littlewood-type problems. Compos. Math. 143(3), 689–702 (2007)
M. Einsiedler, E. Lindenstrauss, Diagonal actions on locally homogeneous spaces, in “Homogeneous Flows, Moduli Spaces and Arithmetic”, Clay Math. Proc. 10, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI (2010), 155–241.
M. Einsiedler, T. Ward, Ergodic Theory: With a View Towards Number Theory, Graduate Texts in Mathematics 259, Springer-Verlag London Ltd. (2011).
Fishman L.: Schmidt’s game on fractals. Israel J. Math. 171, 77–92 (2009)
I.J. Good, Corrigenda: “The fractional dimensional theory of continued fractions” [Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 37 (1941), 199–228], Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 105:3 (1989), 607.
D. Kleinbock, Diophantine properties of measures and homogeneous dynamics, Pure Appl. Math. Q. 4:1 part 2 (2008), 81–97
D. Kleinbock, E. Lindenstrauss, B. Weiss, On fractal measures and Diophantine approximation, Selecta Math. (N.S.) 10:4 (2004), 479–523.
Kleinbock D.Y., Margulis G.A.: Flows on homogeneous spaces and Diophantine approximation on manifolds. Ann. of Math. (2) 148(1), 339–360 (1998)
Kleinbock D., Weiss B.: Badly approximable vectors on fractals. Israel J. Math. 149, 137–170 (2005)
Kleinbock D., Weiss B.: Dirichlet’s theorem on Diophantine approximation and homogeneous flows. J. Mod. Dyn. 2(1), 43–62 (2008)
Kristensen S., Thorn R., Velani S.: Diophantine approximation and badly approximable sets. Adv. Math. 203(1), 132–169 (2006)
Levesley J., Salp C., Velani S.L.: On a problem of K. Mahler: Diophantine approximation and Cantor sets. Math. Ann. 338(1), 97–1187 (2007)
E. Lindenstrauss, Adelic dynamics and arithmetic quantum unique ergodicity, in “Current Developments in Mathematics 2004”, Int. Press, Somerville, MA (2006), 111–139.
Lindenstrauss E.: Invariant measures and arithmetic quantum unique ergodicity. Ann. of Math. (2) 163(1), 165–219 (2006)
de Mathan B., Teulié O.: Problèmes diophantiens simultanés. Monatsh. Math. 143(3), 229–245 (2004)
Pollington A., Velani S.L.: Metric Diophantine approximation and “absolutely friendly” measures. Selecta Math. (N.S.) 11(2), 297–307 (2005)
Schmidt W.M.: On badly approximable numbers and certain games. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 123, 178–199 (1966)
Series C.: The modular surface and continued fractions. J. London Math. Soc. (2) 31(1), 69–80 (1985)
Shah N.: Equidistribution of expanding translates of curves and Dirichlet’s theorem on Diophantine approximation. Inventiones Math. 177(3), 509–532 (2009)
Shapira U.: On a generalization of Littlewood’s conjecture. Journal of Modern Dynamics 3(3), 457–477 (2009)
Shapira U.: A solution to a problem of Cassels and Diophantine properties of cubic numbers. Ann. of Math. 173(1), 543–557 (2011)
R. Shi, Equidistribution of expanding measures with local maximal dimension and diophantine approximation, preprint; available on arXiv at http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1152.
A.J. van der Poorten, Notes on continued fractions and recurrence sequences, in “Number Theory and Cryptography (Sydney, 1989), London Math. Soc. Lecture Note Ser. 154, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge (1990), 86–97.
B. Weiss, Almost no points on a Cantor set are very well approximable, R. Soc. Lond. Proc. Ser. A Math. Phys. Eng. Sci., 457: 2008 (2001),949–952.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Part of the third author’s PhD thesis at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The partial support of ISF grant number 1157/08, as well as the Binational Science Foundation grant 2008454 is acknowledged.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Einsiedler, M., Fishman, L. & Shapira, U. Diophantine Approximations on Fractals. Geom. Funct. Anal. 21, 14–35 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00039-011-0111-1
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00039-011-0111-1