English

The Fibonacci numbers are not a Heilbronn set

Number Theory 2025-03-05 v2

Abstract

For a real number θ\theta, let θ\Vert\theta\Vert denote the distance from θ\theta to the nearest integer. A set of positive integers H\mathcal H is a Heilbronn set if for every αR\alpha\in \mathbb R and every ϵ>0\epsilon>0 there exists hHh\in\mathcal H such that hα<ϵ\Vert h\alpha\Vert<\epsilon (see \cite{montgomery} 2.7). The natural numbers are a Heilbronn set by Dirichlet's approximation theorem. Vinogradov \cite{vinogradov} showed that for a natural number kk, the kkth powers of integers are a Heilbronn set. In this paper we give a constructive proof that the Fibonacci sequence is not a Heilbronn set, but conversely that almost all α\alpha satisfy lim infnFnα=0\liminf_{n\to\infty}\Vert F_n\alpha\Vert=0. However, we exhibit a real number α\alpha such that Fnα>0.14\Vert F_n\alpha\Vert>0.14 for all nn.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.01788,
  title  = {The Fibonacci numbers are not a Heilbronn set},
  author = {Daniel Shiu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.01788},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Duplicates in part work by Zhuraleva "Diophantine approximations with Fibonacci numbers" Journal de Th\'eorie des Nombres de Bordeaux 25 (2013), 499-520