Search

Let p be a prime number and | · |p the p-adic absolute value on Q and on the p-adic field Qp normalized such that |p|p = p −1 . Let ξ be a quadratic real number and α a quadratic p-adic number. We prove that there exist positive, effectively computable, real numbers c1 = c1(ξ), τ1 = τ1(ξ), c2 = c2(α), τ2 = τ2(α), such that |yξ − x| · |y|p ≥ c1|y| −2+τ1 , for x, y ∈ Z̸=0, and |bα − a|p ≥ c2|ab| −2+τ2 , for a, b ∈ Z̸=0. Both results improve the effective lower bounds which follow from an easy Liouville-type argument.

The L\'evy constant of an irrational real number is defined by the exponential growth rate of the sequence of denominators of the principal convergents in its continued fraction expansion. Any quadratic irrational has an ultimately periodic continued fraction expansion and it is well-known that this implies the existence of a L\'evy constant. Let $a, b$ be distinct positive integers. If the sequence of partial quotients of an irrational real number is a Sturmian sequence over $\{a, b\}$, then it has a L\'evy constant, which depends only on $a$, $b$, and the slope of the Sturmian sequence, but not on its intercept. We show that the set of L\'evy constants of irrational real numbers whose sequence of partial quotients is periodic or Sturmian is equal to the whole interval $[\log ((1+\sqrt 5)/2 ), + \infty)$., Comment: 21 pages

Let $\xi, \zeta$ be quadratic real numbers in distinct quadratic fields. We establish the existence of effectively computable, positive real numbers $\tau$ and $c$, such that, for every integer $q$ with $q > c$ we have $$ \max\{\|q \xi \|, \|q \zeta\| \} > q^{-1 + \tau}, $$ where $\| \cdot \|$ denotes the distance to the nearest integer., Comment: 9 pages

We consider some lacunary power series with rational coefficients in 𝕈p. We show that under certain conditions these series take transcendental values at non-zero rational number arguments, and we determine the classes of these transcendental values with respect to Mahler’s classification of p-adic numbers.

Let p be a prime number. We give several results towards a particular instance of a conjecture of Einsiedler and Kleinbock asserting that every p -adic number x satisfies inf a , b ∈ Z ∖ { 0 } | a b | ⋅ | a x − b | p = 0 . We highlight a close relationship between this conjecture and the (still open) p -adic Littlewood conjecture, according to which every real number ξ satisfies inf q ∈ Z , q ⩾ 1 q ⋅ ‖ q ξ ‖ ⋅ | q | p = 0 . Furthermore, we discuss the analogues of these conjectures over fields of power series.

We carry Sprindžuk’s classification of the complex numbers to the field $\mathbb{Q}_{p}$ of $p$-adic numbers. We establish several estimates for the $p$-adic distance between $p$-adic roots of integer polynomials, which we apply to show that almost all $p$-adic numbers, with respect to the Haar measure, are $p$-adic $\tilde{S}$-numbers of order 1.

We prove over fields of power series the analogues of several Diophantine approximation results obtained over the field of real numbers. In particular we establish the power series analogue of Kronecker's theorem for matrices, together with a quantitative form of it, which can also be seen as a transference inequality between uniform approximation and inhomogeneous approximation. Special attention is devoted to the one dimensional case. Namely, we give a necessary and sufficient condition on an irrational power series $\alpha$ which ensures that, for some positive $\eps$, the set $$ \liminf_{Q \in \mathbb{F}_q[z], \,\, \deg Q \to \infty} \| Q \| \cdot |\langle Q \alpha - \theta \rangle| \geq \eps $$ has full Hausdorff dimension., Comment: 28 pages

Switched server systems are mathematical models of manufacturing, traffic and queueing systems. Recently, it was proved in (Eur. J. Appl. Math. 31(4) (2020), pp. 682-708) that there exist switched server systems with $3$ buffers (tanks), a server, filling rates $\rho_1=\rho_2=\rho_3=\frac13$ and parameters $d_1, d_2, d_3>0$ whose global attractor is a fractal set. In this article, we prove that if $x_1$ in $(0,\frac13)$, $x_2$ in $(\frac13,\frac23)$ and $x_3$ in $(\frac23,1)$ are rational numbers or normal numbers in base $4$ (or more generally, rich numbers to base $4$) and $(d_1,d_2,d_3)$ is the vector with positive entries satisfying $$d_1=\frac{1}{3x_1}-1,\quad d_2=\frac{2-3x_2}{3x_2-1}, \quad d_3=\frac{3-3x_3}{3x_3-2},$$ then the corresponding switched server has no fractal attractor. More precisely, the Poincar\'e map of the system has a finite global attractor. The approach we use is to study the topological dynamics of a family of piecewise $\lambda$-affine contractions that includes the Poincar\'e map of the switched server system as a particular case., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures

We prove the irreducibility of integer polynomials $f(X)$ whose roots lie inside an Apollonius circle associated to two points on the real axis with integer abscisae $a$ and $b$, with ratio of the distances to these points depending on the canonical decomposition of $f(a)$ and $f(b)$. In particular, we obtain irreducibility criteria for the case where $f(a)$ and $f(b)$ have few prime factors, and $f$ is either an Enestr\"om-Kakeya polynomial, or has a large leading coefficient. Analogous results are also provided for multivariate polynomials over arbitrary fields, in a non-Archimedean setting., Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure

Let q a prime power and ${\mathbb F}_q$ the finite field of q elements. We study the analogues of Mahler’s and Koksma’s classifications of complex numbers for power series in ${\mathbb F}_q((T^{-1}))$ . Among other results, we establish that both classifications coincide, thereby answering a question of Ooto.

We prove a sharp analogue of Minkowski's inhomogeneous approximation theorem over fields of power series $\mathbb{F}_q((T^{-1}))$. Furthermore, we study the approximation to a given point $\underline{y}$ in $\mathbb{F}_q((T^{-1}))^2$ by the $SL_2(\mathbb{F}_q[T])$-orbit of a given point $\underline{x}$ in $\mathbb{F}_q((T^{-1}))^2$., 22 pages

Let ${{\bf F}}_q$ be a finite field of order a positive power $q$ of a prime number. We study the nonarchimedean quadratic Lagrange spectrum defined by Parkkonen and Paulin by considering the approximation by elements of the orbit of a given quadratic power series in ${{\bf F}}_q((Y^{-1}))$, for the action by homographies and anti-homographies of ${\rm PGL}_2({{\bf F}}_q[Y])$ on ${{\bf F}}_q((Y^{-1})) \cup \{\infty\}$. While their approach used geometric methods of group actions on Bruhat--Tits trees, ours is based on the theory of continued fractions in power series fields., Comment: 18 pages

We prove that these Cantor sets are made up of transcendental numbers, apart from their endpoints $0$ and $1$, under some arithmetical assumptions on the data. To that purpose, we establish a criterion of linear independence over the field of algebraic numbers for the three numbers $1$, a characteristic Sturmian number, and an arbitrary Sturmian number with the same slope.

Among other results, we establish, in a quantitative form, that any sufficiently large integer cannot simultaneously be divisible only by very small primes and have very few digits in its Zeckendorf representation., 13 pages, comments welcome

International audience

We give transcendence measures for $p$-adic numbers $\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}$, having good rational (respectively, integer) approximations, that force them to be either $p$-adic $S$-numbers or $p$-adic $T$-numbers.

Alan Baker, who died on the 4th of February of this year, was born in England on the 19th of August 1939. In 1965 he defended his doctoral dissertation titled ‘Some Aspects of Diophantine Approximation’ at Trinity College Cambridge under the guidance of Harold Davenport. It is a very unusual fact that eight of his papers, including [1], which is discussed in the next section, had appeared in print before he submitted his doctoral dissertation. Baker was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 at the International Congress of Mathematicians at Nice. Other honors he received are detailed in the Article-in-a-Box in this issue. In the present text, we will discuss his paper [1] and the ‘Baker theory of linear forms in logarithms’, which started with the series of four papers [2, 3, 4, 5] published in the British journal Mathematika. This new theory was an impressive breakthrough in the field of Diophantine approximation and we will briefly present some of its applications. For precise references to original papers, including those mentioned in the next sections, the reader is directed to the monographs [6, 7, 8, 9].

Let $\alpha$ be an irrational real number. We show that the set of $\epsilon$-badly approximable numbers \[ \mathrm{Bad}^\varepsilon (\alpha) := \{x\in [0,1]\, : \, \liminf_{|q| \to \infty} |q| \cdot \| q\alpha -x \| \geq \varepsilon \} \] has full Hausdorff dimension for some positive $\epsilon$ if and only if $\alpha$ is singular on average. The condition is equivalent to the average $\frac{1}{k} \sum_{i=1, \cdots, k} \log a_i$ of the logarithms of the partial quotients $a_i$ of $\alpha$ going to infinity with $k$. We also consider one-sided approximation, obtain a stronger result when $a_i$ tends to infinity, and establish a partial result in higher dimensions., Comment: 16 pages

International audience

We establish that there exist computable real numbers whose irrationality exponent is not computable. Fil: Becher, Veronica Andrea. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Bugeaud, Yann. Université de Strasbourg; Francia Fil: Slaman, Theodore A.. University of California at Berkeley; Estados Unidos

The irrationality exponent of an irrational number $\xi$, which measures the approximation rate of $\xi$ by rationals, is in general extremely difficult to compute explicitly, unless we know the continued fraction expansion of $\xi$. Results obtained so far are rather fragmentary, and often treated case by case. In this work, we shall unify all the known results on the subject by showing that the irrationality exponents of large classes of automatic numbers and Mahler numbers (which are transcendental) are exactly equal to $2$. Our classes contain the Thue--Morse--Mahler numbers, the sum of the reciprocals of the Fermat numbers, the regular paperfolding numbers, which have been previously considered respectively by Bugeaud, Coons, and Guo, Wu and Wen, but also new classes such as the Stern numbers and so on. Among other ingredients, our proofs use results on Hankel determinants obtained recently by Han., Comment: International Mathematics Research Notices 2015

Suppose that $F(x)\in\mathbb{Z}[[x]]$ is a Mahler function and that $1/b$ is in the radius of convergence of $F(x)$. In this paper, we consider the approximation of $F(1/b)$ by algebraic numbers. In particular, we prove that $F(1/b)$ cannot be a Liouville number. If $F(x)$ is also regular, we show that $F(1/b)$ is either rational or transcendental, and in the latter case that $F(1/b)$ is an $S$-number or a $T$-number., 52 pages

Let $S = \{q_1, \ldots , q_s\}$ be a finite, non-empty set of distinct prime numbers. For a non-zero integer $m$, write $m = q_1^{r_1} \ldots q_s^{r_s} M$, where $r_1, \ldots , r_s$ are non-negative integers and $M$ is an integer relatively prime to $q_1 \ldots q_s$. We define the $S$-part $[m]_S$ of $m$ by $[m]_S := q_1^{r_1} \ldots q_s^{r_s}$. Let $(u_n)_{n \ge 0}$ be a linear recurrence sequence of integers. Under certain necessary conditions, we establish that for every $\varepsilon > 0$, there exists an integer $n_0$ such that $[u_n]_S\leq |u_n|^{\varepsilon}$ holds for $n > n_0$. Our proof is ineffective in the sense that it does not give an explicit value for $n_0$. Under various assumptions on $(u_n)_{n \ge 0}$, we also give effective, but weaker, upper bounds for $[u_n]_S$ of the form $|u_n|^{1 -c}$, where $c$ is positive and depends only on $(u_n)_{n \ge 0}$ and $S$.

We establish several new metrical results on the distribution properties of the sequence ({xn})n≥1, where {·} denotes the fractional part. Many of them are presented in a more general framework, in which the sequence of functions (x ↦ xn)n≥1 is replaced by a sequence (fn)n≥1, under some growth and regularity conditions on the functions fn.

Let $S$ be a finite set of primes. The $S$-part $[m]_S$ of a non-zero integer $m$ is the largest positive divisor of $m$ that is composed of primes from $S$. In 2013, Gross and Vincent proved that if $f(X)$ is a polynomial with integer coefficients and with at least two roots in the complex numbers, then for every integer $x$ at which $f(x)$ is non-zero, we have (*) $[f(x)]_S\leq c\cdot |f(x)|^d$, where $c$ and $d$ are effectively computable and $d1/n$, provided we do not require effectivity of $c$. Further, we show that such an inequality does not hold anymore with $d=1/n$ and sufficiently small $c$. In addition we prove a density result, giving for every $\epsilon>0$ an asymptotic estimate with the right order of magnitude for the number of integers $x$ with absolute value at most $B$ such that $f(x)$ has $S$-part at least $|f(x)|^{\epsilon}$. The result of Gross and Vincent, as well as the other results mentioned above, are generalized to values of binary forms and decomposable forms at integral points. Our main tools are Baker type estimates for linear forms in complex and $p$-adic logarithms, the $p$-adic Subspace Theorem of Schmidt and Schlickewei, and a recent general lattice point counting result of Barroero and Widmer., Comment: 42 pages

The irrationality exponent of an irrational p-adic number $$\xi $$ , which measures the approximation rate of $$\xi $$ by rational numbers, is in general very difficult to compute explicitly. In this work, we shall show that the irrationality exponents of large classes of automatic p-adic numbers and Mahler p-adic numbers (which are transcendental) are exactly equal to 2. Our classes contain the Thue–Morse–Mahler p-adic numbers, the regular paperfolding p-adic numbers, the Stern p-adic numbers, among others.