English

Badly approximable numbers over imaginary quadratic fields

Number Theory 2018-09-21 v3 Dynamical Systems

Abstract

We recall the notion of nearest integer continued fractions over the Euclidean imaginary quadratic fields KK and characterize the "badly approximable" numbers, (zz such that there is a C(z)>0C(z)>0 with zp/qC/q2|z-p/q|\geq C/|q|^2 for all p/qKp/q\in K), by boundedness of the partial quotients in the continued fraction expansion of zz. Applying this algorithm to "tagged" indefinite integral binary Hermitian forms demonstrates the existence of entire circles in C\mathbb{C} whose points are badly approximable over KK, with effective constants. By other methods (the Dani correspondence), we prove the existence of circles of badly approximable numbers over any imaginary quadratic field, with loss of effectivity. Among these badly approximable numbers are algebraic numbers of every even degree over Q\mathbb{Q}, which we characterize. All of the examples we consider are associated with cocompact Fuchsian subgroups of the Bianchi groups SL2(O)SL_2(\mathcal{O}), where O\mathcal{O} is the ring of integers in an imaginary quadratic field.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1707.07231,
  title  = {Badly approximable numbers over imaginary quadratic fields},
  author = {Robert Hines},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.07231},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

v3: Improved exposition (hopefully), especially in the second half of the paper

R2 v1 2026-06-22T20:54:54.341Z