An approximation property of lacunary sequences

Abstract

Let f ₁ and f ₂ be two positive numbers of the field $K = \mathbb{Q}(\sqrt 5 )$, and let f _n+2 = f _n+1 + f _n for each n ≥ 1. Let us denote by {x} the fractional part of a real number x. We prove that, for each ξ ∉ K, the inequality {ξf _n } > 2/3 holds for infinitely many positive integers n. On the other hand, we prove a result which implies that there is a transcendental number ξ such that {ξf _n } < 39/40 for each n ≥ 1. Moreover, it is shown that, for every a > 1, there is an interval of positive numbers that contains uncountably many numbers ξ such that {a ⁿ} 6 min 2/(a − 1), (34a ² − 32a + 7)/(9(2a − 1)²) for each n > 1. Here, the minimum is strictly smaller than 1 for each a > 1. In contrast, by an old result of Weyl, for any a > 1, the sequence {ξa ⁿ}, n = 1, 2, ..., is uniformly distributed in [0, 1] (and so everywhere dense in [0, 1]) for almost all real numbers ξ.