English

Exact Kronecker Constants of Three Element Sets

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2015-07-17 v1 Number Theory

Abstract

For any three element set of positive integers, {a,b,n}\{a,b,n\}, with a<b<na<b<n, nn sufficiently large and gcd(a,b)=1\gcd(a,b)=1, we find the least α\alpha such that given any real numbers t1t_1, t2t_2, t3t_3, there is a real number xx such that \begin{equation*} \max \{\left\langle ax-t_{1}\right\rangle ,\left\langle bx-t_{2}\right\rangle ,\left\langle nx-t_{3}\right\rangle \}\leq \alpha , \end{equation*} where \left\langle \cdot \right\rangle denotes the distance to the nearest integer. The number α\alpha is known as the angular Kronecker constant of {a,b,n}\{a,b,n\}. We also find the least β\beta such that the same inequality holds with upper bound β\beta when we consider only approximating t1,t2,t3t_{1},t_{2},t_{3} {0,1/2}\in \{0,1/2\}, the so-called binary Kronecker constant. The answers are complicated and depend on the congruence of nmod(a+b)n\mod(a+b). Surprisingly, the angular and binary Kronecker constants agree except if na2mod(a+b)n\equiv a^{2}\mod(a+b).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1503.09071,
  title  = {Exact Kronecker Constants of Three Element Sets},
  author = {Kathryn E. Hare and L. Thomas Ramsey},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.09071},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:06:58.610Z